Sign up for your Advent-in-a-Bag!

The season of Advent speaks to us even more powerfully this year, as we cope with the darkness of long nights and pandemic anxieties while yearning for the light to come. St. Clement's is offering COVID-safe ways for the whole community to mark this reflective time with a number of Advent offerings focussed around the themes of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love.

First off is the Advent-in-a-Bag offer, which is extended to parish members as well as our North Vancouver neighbours. It includes the makings of a simple Advent wreath and other activities, including a Advent calendar poster and a card stock Mary and Joseph awaiting a Las Posadas adventure in local homes and landmarks. Please email peggy@stclementschurch.ca if you would like a bag delivered or set aside for you to pick up at the office.

You are invited to visit our website each Sunday, when a new special Advent page will go live with a virtual Advent wreath lighting, stories, reflections, music and prayers, and messages about the Advent theme of the week. You will also find photographs of Mary and Joseph on their travels around North Vancouver!

If you are on a walk or drive, be sure to come by the church to see our special Advent lighting display, which will begin on November 29. Lynda Faivre-Duboz has been hard at work crafting a new outdoor Advent wreath that will see a new candle light up each successive Sunday until all the candles will be lit on Christmas Eve. 

And this year our tree in Lynn Valley Village Square will have a special Advent theme, with purple-coloured Advent lighting and new decorations added each week to celebrate the four themes of Advent. Because of the need for staggered scheduling due to the current restrictions on gatherings, we won't be decorating our tree on the first Sunday of Advent as usual. However, all the trees will be decorated and ready for your viewing pleasure during the first week of December. 

If you would like to decorate one or more of the wooden cut-out decorations with Hope, Peace, Joy or Love, just let Peggy know. The "Hope" decorations will be put on the tree during the first week of Advent, and the other ones will be added successively each Sunday thereafter. 

We hope you will join with your parish friends and community neighbours in celebrating Advent in your home and your heart.