The Prayer for the First Sunday of Advent by Adolphe Baudon de Mony “My Savior Jesus, the whole world is awaiting Your coming”

“My Savior Jesus, the whole world is awaiting Your coming. The nations call for their Redeemer, and sinners groan in their chains, until it pleases You to break the bonds that bind them to sin and death. I have You in my heart at this moment, and for me, You have already come, although You are still delaying for so many others who would have benefited much more from Your favors. You have redeemed me, You have broken my chains, so harsh and heavy; Oh ! How much I thank you! That I kiss with love Your sacred wounds! What joy I feel at having been thus privileged among so many souls who surround me! But, Lord, if I possess You in this blessed moment, is it not true that You still wait for me? Without doubt, I have broken with the most shameful and serious sins, since Your minister has allowed me to approach your adorable Sacrament, but to how many faults am I still not subject? On how many points do you not expect me? You know what I lack, and the miseries into which my inclination leads me. Help me, Lord, to know them as You do, so that I can hate them and fight them as a Christian should. (Reflect for a moment on the faults to which we are most exposed). My God, how quick men are to offend You! I hear you through the voice of your Prophet complaining about their ingratitude. “I fed children, and I raised them, you say, but they despised me. The ox knows its master, and the donkey the Crib of its Lord, but Israel did not know Me and my People were without understanding. Alas! Alas! How often does your Church have to repeat this language! After the Crib of Bethlehem and the Cross of Calvary, impiety did not stop in the face of these Prodigies of Kindness. Before the Eucharist, she blasphemed! My God, forgive us, and grant us to convert. Your Prophet adds: “Woe to the sinful nation, to the people laden with iniquity, to the evil race, to the wicked sons. Where will I strike you again, you who constantly add new prevarications? Every head is languid and every heart desolate. From the soles of the feet to the top of the head, there is nothing healthy in my People.” Lord, how terrible are your Judgments! How dismal it will be for many men the Day when You come, with great Majesty and seated on the clouds, to search consciences! But there is still time to appease Your justices. You are in your Tabernacle to exercise your Mercies; your Blood is on our lips to bring back the Life of Grace; your Passion, your Pains intercede for us. So take pity on us, convert us, change us, while there is time, so that your Advent may be accomplished, no longer in terror, but in Joy and eternal Bliss. O my soul, your God is Good to you; strive to repay Him. He wants to come to you to dominate you from now on, to remain with you like the bridegroom with his faithful companion. Apply yourself to making Him in yourself a dwelling worthy of Him. And first of all, chase away through prayer this dissipation, this lightness which prevents you from elevating you to God and which absorbs you in the pettiness of the world. Give time to meditation on Holy things, to prayer, to the examination of your inclinations and inclinations. This way you will become strong against yourself. Then, wage war against this vanity which torments you and creeps into your best actions. Learn to be humble, as befits a poor creature, and train yourself to overcome this defect so dominant in our poor nature. When you are made small and modest, the Lord Jesus will Bless you. Finally, remember that we are in the Time of Penance, that if the Church has relaxed its discipline, it has not therefore exempted us from mourning our sins and hating our faults. It is therefore not a time for pleasure, but a time for returning to oneself, for mortification. Think of it, like the Patriarchs and the Prophets, who longed for the Coming of the Desire of the nations. During Advent I will add one more prayer to my ordinary prayers to obtain my Conversion as a sinner.” Amen