The Season of Advent

from tomorrow's newsletter:

Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of Christ at Christmas, personally and individually, and in the liturgy, the public prayer of the Church. In our minds and imaginations we go back to the period before the birth of Christ and contemplate the attitudes and feelings of the people at that time, as they waited expectantly for the coming of the Messiah. We try to enter into that mood ourselves as we move through the four weeks of Advent leading up to Christmas Day.

The liturgy during Advent focuses first on the prospect of Christ's Second Coming at the end of time: "you must stand ready," Jesus says in today's gospel, because that time may arrive suddenly and unexpectedly.

Then the spotlight moves onto the figure of John the Baptist, prophesying the beginning of Christ's ministry, again appealing to people to make themselves ready for the manifestation of God in their midst.

On the last Sunday before Christmas the focus moves to Our Lady and St Joseph and the events immediately preceding the Incarnation. "The Word was made flesh," says the gospel reading for Christmas Day, "he lived among us", underlining the real significance of Jesus' birth: the dawn of salvation and God's descent to our human level in order to raise us up into his divine life.

Every week in Advent we light candles on the Advent wreath, reflecting another theme of the season: that as the time of Christ's birth approached, God's light shone more and more strongly, dispelling the darkness of a fallen world.