Advent Morning of Reflection

Father Christopher Beaudet,
Instructor of Canon Law at the Saint Paul Seminary,
is the guest author of this blog post.
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Last Saturday morning, the SPS Women's Auxiliary sponsored an Advent Morning of Reflection in our Saint Mary’s Chapel. The first of these began last year when Vice-Rector Father Peter Laird led the morning reflections; around 50 women attended. It was very successful and word spread quickly, causing the numbers to increase dramatically this year to over 130. I provided this year’s reflections on the theme “The Domestic Seminary”: Preparing Our Families To Encounter Christ.

The morning began with Mass at 8:00am with hospitality following in the commons. The first conference, “Do I Hope To Encounter Christ?”, was followed by Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. While the Eucharist was exposed, several priests were on hand to hear confessions. The second conference, “Preparing Others To Encounter Christ”, concluded with Benediction.

The Advent Morning of Reflection is meant to invite women to our home to provide them a moment of pause and prayer in anticipation of the great feast of Christmas. The peaceful and anticipatory attitude of Advent is often sacrificed in the hectic pace typical of the weeks before Christmas. For the women who come to the seminary for this event, it is an opportunity to refocus and be more fixed on the coming of the Lord. That not only makes their Advent more holy, more properly religious, it does the same for their Christmas.