Beginning the Church's liturgical year, Advent (from, "ad-venire" in Latin or "to come to") is the season encompassing the four Sundays (and weekdays) leading up to the celebration of Christmas.
The Advent season is a time of preparation that directs our hearts and minds to Christ’s second coming at the end of time and also to the anniversary of the Lord’s birth on Christmas. The final days of Advent, from December 17 to December 24, focus particularly on our preparation for the celebrations of the Nativity of our Lord (Christmas).
Advent devotions including the Advent wreath, remind us of the meaning of the season. Our Advent calendar above can help you fully enter in to the season with daily activity and prayer suggestions to prepare you spiritually for the birth of Jesus Christ.
https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-year-and-calendar/advent
"Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel" (Isaiah 7:14). The evangelist announced the good news that this prophecy has been fulfilled by the coming of the Eternal Son of God into our world (cf. Matthew 1:22-23). Whatever God has promised to humanity, He is able to provide to us.
Our Lord Jesus Christ shares in our human life so that we can have a share in divine life. This was the intent of our God when He created us in the divine image. However, by the free choice of human beings to lose faith in God, sin and death entered our world. The good news is that God promises that these destructive powers will not have the last word in our lives. God speaks the Word of salvation, providing a saving remedy through the gift of His Son. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. . . . And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth” (John 1:1-2.14.)
Whatever God has promised to humanity, He is able to provide for us. This is the message of the Advent season. During the celebration of the Eucharist, we will hear the prophetic message to the People of the First Covenant to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. The figure of John the Baptist will call us once again to allow the promises of God in Christ Jesus to be fulfilled within us by means of repentance.
These biblical witnesses remind us to clear away any obstacles that prevent the love of God from ruling over our thinking, speaking, and acting. Repentance involves a change of mind. It leads to making a decisive turning away from sin because we are living in the loving presence of God. Sin cannot perform what it promises when we were enticed to embrace its ways. What seemed to be delightful was found out to be destructive. The true source of contentment for our lives is to be conformed to the commandments of God. This is how we express our love and trust in God. Our forbearers encouraged each other to mature in Christian discipleship by singing, "I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on Jesus!"
Advent reminds us to keep our minds fixed on Jesus. This will enable the promises of God to be fulfilled within us. There is a two-fold character to this season. First, it commemorates the advent of the Messiah even as we prepare for the celebration of Christmas. Second, it reminds us that we are in the advent of the second and final coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in glory. Time as we know it will come to an end, the Kingdom of God will be definitively established, and the general judgment will be revealed.
Prognosticators want to forecast when the glorious coming of our Lord will take place due to what they read in the newspapers. The Advent season points us to the precepts of the Lord, who said, "But of that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone" (Matthew 24:36). Advent reminds that the time to be faithfully prepared is all the time. God continues to be Emmanuel. God is always with us.
Sometimes in my pastoral counseling sessions, an anguished person expresses their desire to know in a tangible way that God is present and cares for them. In the sacramental life of the Church, Jesus has given us this assurance, yet some say that they cannot feel it. Jesus is asking us to accept Him as He has chosen to present Himself.
God is with us in the Sacrament of Baptism, making us His children and assuring us that we are loved by Him. God is with us in the Sacrament of Confirmation, giving us the anointing of the Holy Spirit to participate in the mission of the Church. God is with us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, offering His Body and Blood as an assurance that is love is total and without reservation. These sacraments of initiation serve as our foundation for living (CCC #1212). Do we recognize that God is with us in a real way through the seven sacraments? God is nourishing us with His very life though signs that we can see, taste, or touch. What a great Gift! Our Lord Jesus Christ is Emmanuel everyday and for eternity for everyone who wishes to receive Him.
This makes us to be a sacramental people, who serve as an instrument of the presence of God in the world. God has decided to continue to act through the ministry of His Church. Jesus said that being part of this community is so important because it is one of the ways that you can find His presence (cf. Matthew 18:20). The promise of the First Covenant, in which all peoples of the world would be gathered to worship the one God, is fulfilled in the new and everlasting covenant established by the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. "God gathered together as one all those who in faith look upon Jesus as the author of salvation and the source of unity and peace, and established them as the Church that for each and all it may be the visible sacrament of this saving unity" (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Dogmatic Constitution of the Church, Lumen genitum #9).
In the great compassion of our God, the experience of living a reconciled relationship with God and with each other is made available to us. In what has been called the "great commission," God has appointed us to be an instrument through which every person will understand and accept this gracious offer (cf. Matthew 28:16-20)
Whatever God has promised to humanity, He is able to provide for us. The sacramental life of the Church, instituted by Christ, is part of the proclamation of His Gospel. Let the message of the Advent season speak to you in ways that go beyond the commercialization of Christmas.
Wishing you a holy and prayerful Advent journey, I am
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Rev. Robert Cooper
Pastor