“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day catch you unexpectedly, like a trap.” with these words Jesus warns His disciples in today’s passage of the Gospel against wasting of time and living ungodly. He wants them to be ready for His second coming.
Celebrating the First Sunday of Advent we begin a new liturgical year. The Liturgy of the Word does not say a lot
about Jesus’ upcoming birthday as many of us might expect… Is this a mistake? No, there is neither an omission
in the Liturgy nor an error in our Sunday Missals. In fact, the focus of the liturgical season of Advent is twofold: It prepares us for Christmas, when we recall Christ’s nativity in Bethlehem but it is also a time when we look forward to Christ’s second coming at the end of the ages, something called Parousia. Usually, we remember the first meaning of Advent because we are surrounded by Christmas decorations almost everywhere even though we have not started the month of December yet. The majority of the Liturgy of Advent is dedicated to Christ’s second coming and only 8 last days refer to the mystery of the Nativity.
In many churches and households throughout the world we keep the beautiful tradition of displaying an Advent wreath with 4 candles. The wreath is a part of our longstanding Catholic tradition; yet its origins are uncertain. It has an interesting and profound meaning. The wreath is made of various evergreens that depict the immortality of our soul and the new everlasting life promised to us through Christ, the eternal Word of the Father. The four candles represent the four weeks of Advent. Some tradition says that each candle stands for a thousand years to sum to four thousand years, which are said to pass from Adam and Eve to the Birth of the Saviour.

This Wednesday we begin the month of December. Pope Francis asks us to pray this month for catechists: “Let us pray for catechists, summoned to announce the Word of God: may they be its witnesses, with courage and creativity and in the power of the Holy Spirit”.

This week we celebrate the first Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the month and as well
we hold these celebrations:
Tuesday, November 30th, we observe the Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle. He was a brother of St. Peter. In the Gospel of St. John, we read that Andrew first recognized Jesus as the Messiah and then brought his brother Simon Peter to Jesus. Tradition says that Andrew preached the Gospel along the Black Sea and the Dnieper river as far as Kiev. Hence, he
became a patron saint of Ukraine, Romania and Russia. Andrew is as well said to found the episcopal see of Byzantium (Constantinople, Istanbul), so he is also recognized as the patron saint of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The iconography pictures St. Andrew crucified on a xshaped cross, now commonly known as St. Andrew’s Cross.

Friday, December 3rd, we observe the memorial of St. Francis Xavier. He was a missionary priest, a companion of St. Ignatius of Loyola and one of the first seven Jesuits who took vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and apostolic service according to the directions of the pope in Paris in 1534. He sailed to India, the islands of Malaysia and to Japan. Whenever he went, Francis lived with the poorest people sharing their food and rough accommodations. He intended to go from Japan to China but this plan was never realized. Before reaching the mainland, he died. His remains are enshrined in the Church of Good Jesus in Goa, India.

God bless,
Fr. Peter