Dear Parish Family, I cannot believe that we are celebrating the First Sunday of Advent and beginning a “new Church calendar year!!” I found this Advent Reflection from Marquette University. I pray and hope we can truly enter into the spirit of Advent this year. May we watch, pray and prepare to receive the Christ child again into our lives to not only be renewed but reinvigorated to live our faith every day . Please take advantage of our Advent Night of Reflection here at St. Paul the Apostle on Tuesday December 6th at 6:30PM. I also hope you take advantage of a Communal Penance Service on Sunday December 11th, 3:00PM at Holy Family Church in Poland. You will be in my prayers for a blessed Advent!! My love
and prayers always, ~~Fr. Steve.
FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT GOSPEL REFLECTION
In the Gospel for this first Sunday of Advent, Jesus warns His
disciples at the beginning of the passage, “Be Watchful! Be
alert!” and again at the end: “What I say to you, I say to all:
“Watch!”
When many of us hear a command like this, our natural follow
up question is: “What should I be watching for?” The easy an-
swer is that we should be waiting and watching for the birth of
Christ on Christmas Day. But He was already born over two
thousand years ago.
This question is important because we need to clarify what we
are watching for so we do not miss the whole point of the Ad-
vent Season.
We watch and wait in a context. And the context of our prepar-
ing for Christmas often times gets us distracted. We get distract-
ed by all the commercial messages we receive about shopping
smart for Christmas from the Black Friday sales, which has now
turned into Black Thursday, to the special sales two days before
Christmas.
What are we watching for and waiting for? I would suggest that
the answer is contained in the initial proclamation of Jesus in the
Gospel of Mark: “The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God
has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” What we
are really waiting for is the deeper faith realization that the birth
of Jesus Christ in time is really Good News. It was good news
for the shepherds and over two thousand years later it is the
same for us. And what was the good news to the shepherds?
“To you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is the
Messiah, the Lord.” So what we are preparing for is a deepening
awareness of the Good News that we have a Savior. And how
do we let this happen so that when we celebrate Christmas in
our Churches and in our homes there is space in our hearts and
families for what we are really celebrating. We create these
spaces by clarifying what we are watching for during the Advent
Season with the simple prayer: “Come, Lord Jesus, help me to
grow in a greater awareness that you are my Savior. You have
saved me from endlessly searching for the meaning of life. You
have saved me from turning against myself by Your forgiveness.
You have saved me from endlessly searching for signs of Your
presence because You touch me through your Sacraments. You
have saved me from thinking that the possessions or positions I
have will save me and make me loved. Thank you for continuing
to save me.”