The Season of Advent

Advent—which begins Sunday—is the first season of the Church year, and guides our worship the four Sundays leading up to Christmas Day. “Advent” comes from the Latin adventus, meaning “coming or arrival.” It’s a season of preparation and anticipation; preparing our hearts to rightly celebrate the coming of Jesus for our salvation at Christmas, and to anticipate Christ’s second coming in power and glory to bring justice and make all things new. Advent braids together two longings—ancient and ongoing—into a single season of watchfulness. It asks the Church to inhabit Israel’s story even as it awakens our own hope, letting the first coming of Christ illuminate the second.

It’s a penitential season similar to Lent, reflected in the Church’s use of purple vestments and decor, and a few changes in our liturgy (particularly in the Ministry of the Word*). And while our culture fires up the Christmas Machine, the Church has a countercultural offer: slow down and anticipate Christmas with joy and hope, not exhaustion and dread. Against the whirl of consumerism, adopt the steady rhythm of Advent. Enjoy the waiting. Watch. Study. Give. Listen.

*The “Ministry of Word” is the proclamation of God’s Word through liturgy, preaching, and creed (everything up to The Peace), while the “Ministry of Sacrament” is the administration of the gospel sacraments of Communion and Baptism. Together these are called “The Ministry of Word and Sacrament”.