Dear Friends,
Today the season of Advent begins, and Christmas is only four weeks away. Despite the commercial Christmas bearing in upon us everywhere during this time, at S. Michael’s we do observe the Church’s season of Advent. This is a time for us to get in touch with our own longing and waiting. As Christian people we have always to learn anew what we are waiting for, and how to recognise the first signs of its coming. The fulfilment that is promised in Jesus Christ shapes our values and choices and gives body to humanity’s perennial longing for the creation to be completed and all things to be well.
Our deep yearning for justice and reconciliation and wholeness and peace, however it is expressed, matches God’s own longing for those things. Our longing and God’s coincide in Jesus Christ, in whose continuing work we participate through the Holy Spirit. Today’s Scripture readings call us to be awake and alert, prepared to face the coming of the one who is the end of all our longing. Achieving this readiness is the Advent task of all Christian disciples and people of good will. Please let it grow in you as you read and pray the daily readings for the season.
A beautifully prepared Advent wreath stands in the sanctuary of the church, and Sunday by Sunday we light the candles as we journey again towards the birth of Christ, in hope and expectation for our communities and our world. And on this first Sunday of Advent, the first day of the new liturgical year, we are invited again to recall our baptism, and the faith journey on which it has set us. So at the beginning of Mass we are sprinkled with baptismal water, as we ask God to forgive our sins and set us on our way as new people.
Are any among you keen to explore this challenge? You may like to join our enquiry and discovery process (the Catechumenate), which helps equip people to understand and live out their baptismal promises. The process leads to baptism, or renewal of baptismal promises, at Eastertime. In this, a few of us gather together to tell and learn again the Christian story and its impact, the story that makes us the people of God. We are led to look at our basics, the mess we are in and the stance we need to take to deal with it. We are reminded of the loving promises of God to us all and given glimpses of the ways forward that we may take. We are encouraged to trust God’s promises until they begin to be fulfilled and take real flesh in our lives. Please speak to me if you want to be part of this.
Tonight the choir will lead us in the Advent Carol Service. Please make an effort to come and to bring your friends.
May God bless you all.
Peter Williams
Advent Readings: Week One
Monday Isaiah 2: 1–5 Matthew 8: 5–11
(S. Andrew’s Day) Romans 10: 9–18 Matthew 4: 18–22
Tuesday Isaiah 11: 1–10 Luke 10: 21–24
Wednesday Isaiah 25: 6–10a Matthew 15: 29–37
Thursday Isaiah 26: 1–6 Matthew 7: 21, 24–27
Friday Isaiah 29: 17–24 Matthew 9: 27–31
Saturday Isaiah 30: 19–26 Matthew 9: 35–10: 1, 6–8
