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Wake Up! Shape Up! Cheer Up! Hurry Up!
Summarizing Advent in 8 words
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Readings for Sunday Masses & Marian Feasts in Advent, Years A, B & C
Advent wreath at St. Austin, 2017
The Church's liturgical year does not begin on January 1st. It begins instead with the season of Advent on the 4th Sunday before Christmas Day. Advent is a season of quiet anticipation, waiting for God's plans to break into the world in wonderful, unexpected ways. Christians often speak of the Advent themes of patience, hope, joy, and peace, but the Advent season can also be summarized in eight words, two words for each Sunday: Wake up! Shape up! Cheer up! Hurry up!
Of the entire year, the first two weekends of the Advent season are those when the Church seems most out of sync with the secular world. Well before the first Sunday of Advent, we in the United States are bombarded with Christmas decorations, Christmas movies, and Christmas shopping, while the Church gently whispers: "It's not Christmas yet! Good things will come to those who wait."
As a society, we Americans are not very good at waiting, especially patient waiting. Yet, there is a comforting and compelling wisdom in knowing that no matter what artificial deadlines we invent, God's timing cannot be controlled.
We also have a separate lectionary guide for the Daily Readings in the Advent Season.
For a delightful introduction to the season, we highly recommend this short video from Busted Halo: -
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1st Sunday: Wake Up!
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A ~ Matthew 24:37 - 44, B ~ Mark 13:33 - 37, C ~ Luke 21:25 - 28, 34 - 36
We begin the liturgical year not far from where it ended. Our final weeks of Ordinary Time urged us to consider the end times and the afterlife. Today, Jesus warns us to stay vigilant, because we do not know when the Son of Man will return. It is an excellent opportunity to ask ourselves if we have been following through on our obligation as Christian disciples to pay attention to "the signs of the times" and magnify the ways that God's kingdom is already breaking into our world.
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2nd Sunday: Shape Up!
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St. John the Baptist -
Titian (Wikimedia Commons)
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A ~ Matthew 3:1 - 12, B - Mark 1:1 - 8, C ~ Luke 3:1 - 6
We focus this weekend on the message of John the Baptist, preaching a baptism of the repentance of sins. John speaks in harsh terms of what will happen to those who have not been faithful to God, going so far in the Gospel of Matthew to shout at the Pharisees and Sadducees: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?"
This weekend invites us to reflect on how we—as individuals, as local communities, as a universal Church, and as world citizens—have fallen short of the mark in helping to build up the kingdom of God. As laborers in the vineyard of the Lord, how are we obligated to assist in bringing about Isaiah's vision that "every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill made low" (40:4)?
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Excursus: Two Marian Celebrations in Advent
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Immaculate Conception -
Old Saint Mary's Parish, San Francisco
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December 8: The Immaculate Conception
The belief that Mary was protected from sin from the moment of her conception is implied by the deliberate parallels made between Luke 1:39 - 45 and 2 Samuel 6 (or 1 Chronicles 15 - 16). It has been explicitly articulated since the early 2nd century in such documents as the Protoevangelium of James, and it was debated extensively by theologians in the Middle Ages. The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was not declared as dogma, however, until 1854. Five years before, in response to the increasing devotion to Mary's immaculate conception in the previous three centuries, Pope Pius IX had surveyed the world's bishops, with over 90% affirming that this belief should be declared a dogma of the Church.
The Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception is the patronal feast day of the United States. When December 8 falls on a Sunday, the celebration is transferred to Monday, December 9, since the 2nd Sunday of Advent takes precedence.
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We repeat the explanation again, as many Christians misunderstand the teaching, especially since it falls in the season of Advent: the Immaculate Conception celebrates that Mary herself was conceived without sin. (We believe that Jesus Christ was conceived without sin, too, but that is not the point of the celebration that we are discussing.) For non-Catholics especially, this may seem to be a strange concept. It isn't explicitly mentioned in the Bible. As we note on this other page, the Bible may be the most privileged part of the Apostolic Tradition, but it is not the complete compendium of the Tradition.
Before Mary was conceived, God intended her to have a unique role in salvation. God has similar designs for each of us, too!
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December 12: Our Lady of Guadalupe
In 1531, only ten years after the Spanish conquistadors and the Aztecs first violently clashed with each other, a miraculous evangelizing event occurred in what is now modern-day Mexico City. Appearing as a teen-aged mestiza (mixed race woman), wearing traditional Aztec clothing, Mary asked the middle-aged indigenous Juan Diego, a recent convert to Catholicism, to convey a message to the local archbishop, Juan de Zumarraga.
After the archbishop expressed skepticism, Mary instructed Diego to gather up some roses and wrap them in his tilma (poncho). As the roses fell from Diego's tilma at the bishop's feet, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was somehow emblazoned onto the tilma. After this, remarkable numbers of Aztec people became Christians.
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Our Lady of Guadalupe decorations
at St. Austin, 2016
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The process and materials that created the image defy scientific explanation. It displays sophisticated knowledge of both Spanish Catholicism and Aztec culture that seems unlikely any human being would have possessed in 1531. The tilma itself should have disintegrated within 15 years, but this material, now nearly 500 years old, has withstood exposures to soot and manual veneration for its first 115 years, an acid spill in 1791, and a dynamite explosion in 1921.
Our Lady of Guadalupe is not a celebration only for Hispanic Catholics, but for the entire Christian world. The miracle of Guadalupe is a perfect example of evangelization: two different cultures affirming the holy in one another while not incorporating any of the sins of either culture. Since 301 AD, most people had chosen to become Christians because of pressure from government leaders. The Guadalupe event, on the other hand, convinced remarkable numbers of indigenous people to become Christian disciples for themselves. The example of Our Lady has influenced the Church's understanding of how best to carry out Christ's commission to "make disciples of all nations."
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Third Sunday: Cheer Up!
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A ~ Matthew 11:2 - 11, B ~ John 1:6 - 8, 19 - 28, C ~ Luke 3:10 - 18
Howard (University) Gospel Choir - Adam FagenAfter two weeks of quiet anticipation, the Church can't contain itself any longer. Now is the time to get excited! "Rejoice in the Lord always! I shall say it again: rejoice!" This exhortation from Paul to the Philippians (4:4-7) is the passage most closely associated with the 3rd Sunday of Advent, known as Gaudete (Latin: rejoice) Sunday. We light the rose-colored candle on our Advent wreath, symbolizing that our Advent journey is more than halfway over.
As on the previous Sunday, we hear the words of John the Baptist. But after last week's stern warnings, he offers us more practical advice about how to prepare for the coming of Christ. May we reflect on how we, in the current season of our lives, are to do likewise.
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Fourth Sunday: Hurry Up!
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A ~ Matthew 1:18 - 24, B ~ Luke 1:26 - 38, C ~ Luke 1:39 - 45
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In the closing days of our waiting, our gospel passage takes us to Mary's pregnancy with Jesus Christ. In each year, we witness her interactions with someone else (Joseph in Year A, Gabriel in Year B, and Elizabeth in Year C). In our last moments of reflection before we likely get swept away with last-minute Christmas preparations, we reflect that Mary's excitement about the upcoming birth of Jesus could easily have been tempered with impatience and anxiety. Is there a final lesson for us to learn about our own relationship with God and the Advent themes of patience, hope, joy, and peace?
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Basilica of the Annunciation, Nazareth, Israel
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