Windows of Waiting

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Windows of light for waiting hearts

Advent is a season of watching and waiting. Through Windows of Waiting, you will receive twelve gentle reflections by email, or WhatsApp. This mix of prayers, poems, guided meditations, and creative ideas will help you to rest, reflect, and prepare room for the coming of Christ this Christmas. Make space to pause this Advent.

Sign up HERE or email hello@ministryofhealing.ie if you have problems with Eventbrite. This is a donation-based event, so you are welcome to give whatever you would like.

Join Windows of Waiting, a 12-part email/WhatsApp series of short reflections, poems, and prayers, which offer gentle encouragement for the journey of Advent.

Advent is busy, but it’s also a time to pause, breathe, and remember what we’re really waiting for. Windows of Waiting is a gentle companion for this season: twelve short reflections delivered to your inbox, with poems, prayers, and ideas to help you find light along the way.

Advent is a time of holy waiting — a quiet season when even the smallest glimmer of light can speak of hope. Windows of Waiting offers twelve moments of stillness by email: a window to open, a word to hold, a light for your waiting heart.

You will receive two reflections each week, across the six weeks of Advent, written and created by Lydia and Catherine.

Reading by Candlelight – Advent book group

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As darkness moves towards light, you are warmly invited to join the Church’s Ministry of Healing: Ireland for a reflective Advent reading group. Sign up for one week or more, and, best of all, we will send you the texts, so you don’t have to buy any books! Book via Eventbrite HERE, or if you have difficulties with this, email hello@ministryofhealing.ie. This is a donation-based group – you choose how much you would like to donate.

Week 1 (3rd December): “the solid existence of love” – preparing for Christmas Day

· “Christmas Eve,” by Maeve Brennan (a short story, first published in The New Yorker in 1972) – audio version, read by Roddy Doyle, available

· “Christmas Eve: My Mother Dressing,” by Toi Derricotte (a poem)

Week 2 (10th December): “the smaller you are, the bigger Christmas is” – childhood and Christmas

· “Christmas,” a chapter from the memoir Sculptor’s Daughter, by Tove Jansson, (published in 1968)

· “Taking Down the Tree,” by Jane Kenyon (a poem)

· “Christmas, 1970,” by Sandra M. Castillo (a poem)

Week 3 (17th December): “eventually they noticed” – Christmas cooking

· “This Year it will be Different,” by Maeve Binchy (1996) (short story)

· a short extract from The Green Road by Anne Enright (2015)

· a short extract from “Village Christmas” by Laurie Lee (published 2015 but written much earlier)

· a short extract from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (1843)

Week 4 (7th January 2026): “snow was general all over Ireland”

· The Dead by James Joyce (1914)

Each session offers gentle discussion, space for reflection, and the gift of listening — a pause in the busyness of winter to rest, read, and renew the spirit. Gather with us for four evenings as we explore and discuss short stories, poems, and reflections that open the heart to the season’s mystery and hope. Together we’ll read works that explore the complexity of Christmas from a child’s point of view, the sometimes painful family dynamics of celebration, and the moments of beauty that remain etched in memory.

Each reading group meeting will start with an introduction to the authors, their lives, their work, and their artistic views. We will then open up discussion, comments, likes and dislikes, and any thoughts or ideas you want to share. If you prefer to listen rather than speak, to have your camera off, or to journal or sketch during the discussion, please do!