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Happy New Year! We begin a new Liturgical Year on the First Sunday of Advent. You’ll notice that our Advent Gospel Weeklies lessons focus on joyful anticipation, which is the spirituality of the season of Advent. We delay the celebration of Christmas to, well, Christmas and the Christmas season.
Our culture seems to push us to celebrate Christmas before Christmas and skip over the season of Advent altogether. The Church encourages us to slow the pace and take time to focus on preparing our hearts to celebrate the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. During Advent, we also consider how well we are preparing for Christ’s Second Coming.
We pray that your weeks of Advent will be ones of joyful anticipation and that you remember the joyful part! We pray that you don’t let the trappings of the “perfect” Christmas become a trap that prevents you from truly celebrating the most perfect gift of all—God’s Son become man—and the promise of redemption and eternal life he brings!
Image credit: Corinne SIMON/CIRIC
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