Last year, the Exodus 90 team released our first-ever Advent program. And now for 2022, we’re releasing a whole new Advent program — with new readings, reflections, and disciplines — designed to help you enter into this liturgical season, and prepare the way of the Lord. Here’s the scoop:
So, what is “Advent 2022” from Exodus?
Advent is a time to rejoice in the hope of the coming of Christ. This is a time to push away the cultural cacophony that grows louder around you every December. This secular world has lost the real meaning of Christmas and the desire for Christ’s arrival. In doing this, it also lost any meaning for Advent. Advent 2022 is a spiritual exercise for men that re-establishes this important season. It immerses you in a time of preparation for the coming of our Lord and fills you with a desire for the Kingdom of God. This spiritual exercise will follow the theme of “Joy through Hope” in the book of Isaiah.
How can we free ourselves from the world that sees Christmas merely as an earthly institution—a world that sees Christmas as Santa, money, and possessions? Answer: we will make the Advent season a time of prayer, asceticism, and fraternity. In praying, living with your brothers, and making acts of self-denial, we will come to see the joy of Christmas—a joy found in hope. This season will be an Exodus.
Making an Exodus is not just a 90-day thing; it is a life-journey—a life of waiting and watching for the coming of Christ. This Advent, you and your brothers get the chance to proceed along the narrow way to Christ. You get the chance to live in the world, but not of it.
During this season, you will renew your commitment to the disciplines of prayer, asceticism, and fraternity. These disciplines will keep you attentive to God and his grace throughout your entire day and, thus, the entire season of Advent. Below are the disciplines of prayer, asceticism, and fraternity that you will take up in this exercise.
Sample of Disciplines
- Twenty minutes of silent prayer daily.
- Bring joy to your home each day.
- Be attentive to your spouse (single men, be more attentive to the Lord).
- Meet with a fraternity of men (ideal size 5-7 men) weekly.
- Check-in with your Anchor (one chosen fraternity brother) daily.
“But, what do I get out of it?”
If you take up this exercise, you will receive a reading from the book of Isaiah and a reflection each day on the Exodus mobile app. These readings will help you to have a fruitful Advent and to prepare yourself for the coming of Christ. You will reflect on the relationship between “hope” and “joy.” This exercise will fill you with wonder for the Incarnation; Christ’s first coming will be a source of joy. It will also fill you with hope and wonder for Christ’s second coming. This, too, will be a source of true joy. This exercise will help you find a “hope with a capital H,” not just a hope that things will go well for a while, or at work, or in my relationships, or with your finances; but that things will go finally and permanently well for you and your family at the road’s end.
Key Themes and Weekly Breakdown
Hope and joy: these will be the key themes that will follow us during this Advent exercise. Here is how we will keep the season: the First Week of Advent will find us grappling with the virtue of hope, reminding ourselves of its contours and its qualities, and walking more deeply into the truths that bring us hope.
During the Second Week, we will open the door for the Holy Spirit to stalk false hopes, those passing things that often look alluring and that tempt us to place our hope in them, but that always lead to a dead end.
The Third Week will focus on filling our gaze with the promise of a new heaven and a new earth. It will be a time for us to remember our exile, to bring before our minds our true homeland, and to stir up our desire for that heavenly country.
The final week of Advent will be our opportunity to consider the extraordinary intervention into our dark history by the Lord of the universe, and to wonder anew at the bright mystery of the Incarnation and what it means for us.
Are you ready?
If you are ready to join us this Advent, hop into the Exodus 90 app to get started.
