The St. Vincent De Paul Young Adult Center, located in the Germantown neighborhood of Philadelphia, invites participants to transform the way they see the world, following the examples of St. Vincent de Paul and St. Louise de Marillac. Pre-covid we ran service trips out of our building in Germantown. Now, we run Virtual Encounter Retreats, where students gather together via zoom to pray, hear from Speakers from our Germantown Community, participate in formation around our Vincentian values, are challenged to create systemic change, and ultimately to more deeply love God and our marginalized neighbors. This Advent Prayer continues our mission – of following in the example of St. Vincent and St. Louise to challenge one another, to “ensure our faith moves past the doors of our churches, and encounters Christ in the unexpected ordinary people and places of our lives.”

This Christmas let us pray that our faith may move past the doors of our churches so that we may encounter Christ more intimately and find his gaze in the unexpected ordinary people and places of our lives. We pray that the longings of our hearts may be fulfilled not in luxurious places but rather  in the simple manger of our hearts and find perfect fulfillment in him.