1st SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Once again we begin a new Church Year today with the urgent call to prepare ourselves for Christ’s Second Coming.

Advent is a time of preparation. We tend to think of it first as a time of preparation for Christ's first coming at Christmas, but in fact it is only after we have first heard the call to prepare ourselves for His Second and final Coming in glory that we turn back to remember His first coming in humility, and make ourselves ready in humility to receive Him into our hearts by making ourselves into the humble stable. So today St. Paul exhorts the Roman Christians to “wake up now because our salvation is nearer now than when we first began to believe”.

Therefore, we must make our whole way of life a suitable preparation for the coming of the Son of God on the Last Day. In the Gospel, our Lord also warns against being unready for His Second Coming. One day, perhaps sooner than we think, He is coming to judge all who have ever lived on the earth.                                     ~    Fr. Paul Dobson