Advent/Christmas Eagle - Rector's Rambling for December 3, 2023

This year Advent is as short as it can be - three weeks long, with the 4th Sunday of Advent also being Christmas Eve. We will have our 4th Sunday of Advent 8 and 10 AM Services in the chapel on the morning of the December 24th, Low Masses with no music.  Then back in the evening for the beginning of the celebration of the birth of Our Lord.

Since Advent is only really three weeks long this year, we have a lot of preparation and activity to jam into a shorter period of time!  The activities of the Advent Tea, Garden Tree Lighting, Giving Tree, Warm Fuzzy Tree, the Bazaar, Cookie Walk, and Soup Sunday with Greening of the Church are condensed into a shorter period of time.  Be ready to be involved in these worthy activities!

The shorter period also cuts into our time of preparation, spiritually, during the season of Advent!   It is the Church’s new year, a reset of the calendar of readings and Feasts.  And it has the important spiritual implications as we are preparing  both for the upcoming Christmas Feast (just as we use Lent to prepare for Easter), and it is also a time of preparation for the return of Jesus Christ, in glorious majesty, to judge the quick and the dead.  One is a preparation for the celebration of what has already happened, the other a preparation for that which has not happened yet.  Both need to be actively prepared for spiritually.

How does one do this preparation?  Although it is not the heavy penitential season of Lent, it is a good time to do an evaluation and examination of the state of one’s soul.  Making a confession to a priest is always a good way to do that.  It is also a time to re-up our dedication to a regular life of prayer, reading of scripture, and attending Mass to receive Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  When it comes to Jesus’ return, one does not want to be caught unprepared!

Plan now on being at St. John’s and involved, and also invite others to join us for Advent and Christmas!