The Virgin Mary Has One Goal (Advent IV - Cycle C)

In the Virgin Mary, we see the image of the perfect disciple. Throughout her earthly life, she cooperated completely with God's grace, never falling into sin of any kind. Through the Immaculate Conception, God kept Mary free of all stain of Original Sin. Throughout her whole life she refrained from any sort of personal sin as well, always keeping her will perfectly aligned with God's Will.

When the Archangel Gabriel came to her, Mary was living in humble circumstances, in a tiny village in a region suffering under the cruel yoke of the Roman Empire. But she believed God's words spoken to her by the angel that she would become the Mother of God and that her son would be the long awaited Messiah.

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The Prayer that Brought Me the Most Joy and Peace (Advent III - Cycle C)

In Old Testament history, a long period of preparation transpired before the coming of the Messiah. Many great figures and various events prefigured the deeply yearned-for moment when the Savior would arrive. The last of those great figures was John the Baptist, the cousin of Jesus, the last in a long line of Old Testament prophetic figures.

All the prophets pointed toward Christ through their preaching and writings, and John, the immediate precursor to the Messiah, spoke of the imminent coming of Christ explicitly, preaching an uncompromising message of repentance. He lived as a holy man in the desert and was sought out by many for spiritual advice. In the Gospel passage for this Sunday, he gives practical suggestions for how to live a holy life. At the core of his message is the principle that we are to make our everyday lives holy, ensuring that everything we do is consistent with God's Commandments.

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What Can We Do? (Advent II - Cycle C)

The ancient history of the people of Israel revolved around two pivotal times of liberation through God's divine intervention. The first one was the Exodus from Egypt. After the Patriarchs of Israel moved to Egypt, the Israelites grew to be numerous and prosperous. The Egyptian Pharaoh became jealous of their success and started to oppress them and, in time, he even wanted to destroy them completely. But God raised up Moses and Aaron to lead the Israelites out of Egypt into the Promised Land.

The Israelites settled in their new homeland and eventually established a prosperous kingdom. But they continually deviated from the Torah, the law God had given them through Moses. They often broke faith with God and worshipped the gods of other nations. In response, God allowed the enemies of Israel to subdue them. The northern lands were conquered by the Assyrians and then, in early 6th century BC, Jerusalem itself was taken by the Babylonians, who destroyed the Temple and carried off the sacred objects. They also deported the leading families of the Israelites to Babylon, thereby ushering in the decades long period known as the Babylonian Captivity.

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Reclaiming Advent: Practical Suggestions for a Catholic Celebration of the Advent Season

Our culture starts to celebrate Christmas at best at midnight after Thanksgiving, but more and more at midnight after Halloween. However, in the Catholic Church, we do not start the Christmas season until the evening of December 24. Instead, we have a four-week preparation time leading up to Christmas called Advent, which begins on the Sunday closest to St. Andrew's Day, celebrated on November 30th. In the Catholic Church, the Christmas season then continues into January, until the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord. In fact, in an older Catholic tradition, Christmas celebrations didn't end until Candlemas, which is February 2.

In this article, we will explore how we can reconnect with the original purpose of the Advent season and how we can reintroduce Advent customs developed in the Catholic Church throughout the centuries, around the world. Let us rediscover how we can celebrate Advent in the Catholic way.

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What Is the Message of Advent? (Advent I - Cycle C)

This Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of a new liturgical year. Our society has different ways of calculating the timespan of a year. The civic calendar goes form January 1 to December 31. Schools follow the academic calendar, which begins late summer or early autumn and lasts until the spring. The fiscal year starts on July 1 and ends on June 30. A number of ethnic groups also maintain their own traditional calendars.

In the Catholic Church, our calendar is the liturgical year. We start on the First Sunday of Advent, which is the Sunday closest to the Feast of St. Andrew, observed on November 30. We then follow a sequence of seasons and feasts throughout the year, until the Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday of the liturgical year.

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Inviting Christ to Be the King of Our Lives (Cycle B - Christ the King)

This Sunday, we celebrate the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, which is more popularly known as the Feast of Christ the King. While the feast has biblical roots, its observance was instituted more recently, in 1925 by Pope Pius XI. He did so in response to the growth of secular thinking in the West, whereby Christ was being pushed more and more out of the public sphere. The pope sought to remind the faithful and the world at large that Christ is King of all the world, now and always.

The Feast of Christ the King has various dimensions and applications to our lives. As discussed before, the Israelites expected the Messiah to be a great military conqueror, who would overthrown the Roman Empire, which was occupying the Holy Land at the time. In place of Roman rule, the Messiah would set up a new, glorious Israelite kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital.

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33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time: The Four Phases of Creation History

From a Catholic perspective, we can divide the history of the world into four phases. The first one is the original state of blessedness of humanity. When God created the world, he created a perfect world, without suffering or death. Humanity was to live in this perfect world without end. But through human sin, the world fell from grace, causing suffering and death to enter the human experience.

The fall of humanity ushered in the second phase of the history of the world, characterized by sorrow, the self-destructive cycle of sin, and the inevitability of death. But though the world had fallen into darkness, God did not abandon humanity. He called the Jewish people for a special mission. They were to be his chosen people, set apart from the rest of the world in preparation for the coming of the Messiah, who would redeem the fallen world. We see the centuries of preparation unfolding in the Old Testament Scriptures, through the ups and downs of the history of the Israelites, leading up to the coming of Christ.

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