We begin a new liturgical year of grace. It’s the First Sunday of Advent. We prepare for the Lord’s Coming. Last Sunday, the Solemnity of Christ the King in the Novus Ordo, we underscored the Second Coming of the Lord, who will unmake the world in fire. Advent welds the end of the world with the world’s rebirth in the new Adam, Emanuel, the Incarnate Word. Advent is a time of penitential joy, joyful penance. We fast before we feast.
The season of Advent, and its rush to Christmas, can bring forth from the battered, grizzled and labour-laden a childlike anticipation which I hope no one ever loses. “Unless you be converted, and become as little children …”
