ADVENT SUNDAY November 30, 2025

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.                                           

                  From Cardinal Leo’s Message for Advent

   … Each candle on the Advent wreath marks not only the weeks before Christmas but the stages of salvation history, thereby reminding us of the sacredness of time within God’s plan. With the passage of time, we are called to cultivate hope, faith, joy in our hearts, to consider anew how we live as we engage in the jubilee practices of sacramental confession, holy communion, pilgrimage, prayer, and assistance to the needy. During this Year of the Lord’s favour, our Advent waiting becomes active discipleship where our faith and hope are not just “informative” but “performative” as Pope Benedict XVI wrote a number of years ago (cf. Spe Salvi, 2).

                   ~ excerpts from Cardinal Leo’s Message for Advent - 30 November 2025