How should we pray in Advent? One suggestion: Look at the psalm responses to the scriptural readings during the season.. Here’s one from the Mass for the 1st Sunday:

“ To you, O Lord, I lift my soul.
Make your ways known to me, O Lord;
   teach me your paths,
Guide me in your truth and teach me,
   for you are God my savior,
   and for you I wait all the day. “

Advent’s a teaching time, and God is our teacher and guide. 

The Advent prayers are prayers to make our own. Here’s part of the 1st Preface for Advent:

“We give you thanks, Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord, For he assumed at his first coming the lowliness of human flesh and so fulfilled the design you formed long ago, and opened for us the way to eternal salvation that, when he comes again in glory and majesty and all is at last made manifest, we who watch for that day  may inherit the great promise In which we now dare to hope.”

God’s daring plan calls for daring hope from us.

Here’s part of the 2nd Preface for Advent                                   

“We give you thanks, Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord,For all the oracles of the prophets foretold him, the Virgin Mother longed for himwith love beyond all telling. John the Baptist sang of his coming and proclaimed his presence when he came. It is by his gift that already we rejoice at the mystery of his Nativity so that he may find us watchful in prayer and exultant in his praise.”

We share with the prophets, Mary, and John the Baptist, who rejoiced in the gift they were given, Jesus Christ. 

Collect, Monday, First Week of Advent

Keep us alert, we pray, O Lord our God, as we await the advent of Christ your Son, so that, when he comes and knocks, he may find us watchful in prayer and exultant in his praise. Who lives and reigns…

Prayer after Communion 

Replenished by the food of spiritual nourishment we humbly beseech you, O Lord, that, through our partaking in this mystery you may teach us to judge wisely the things of earth and to hold firm to the things of heaven.

Prayer after Communion

May these mysteries  in which we have participated, profit us, we pray for even now, as we walk amid passing things you teach us by them to love the things of heavenand to hold fast to what endures. Through Christ our Lord.