Blessed Advent to everyone, and happy new year! What are your new year resolutions? I hope your first is making a commitment to sainthood. Won’t you join me? He wants you to use this time to draw closer to Him.
Root out those things standing in your way. Learn to truly detest your sins. Come up with a plan to avoid the things/people/places/situations that put you in near occasion of sin. Engage in spiritual warfare, most especially with the Holy Rosary and the Prayer to St. Michael. The former is essential for embracing your suffering, in order to begin the Via Crucis that is the stairway to Heaven. The latter is particularly effective in times of acute temptation.
Make time for an extra fifteen minutes of quiet prayer this Advent. Contemplate His coming both at Christmas and in the last days, His coming with His infinite Mercy but also His infinite Justice. As we are admonished in today’s Epistle, WAKE UP, and act accordingly.
“If I am not becoming a saint, I am doing nothing.”
This First Sunday of Advent or the Fourth before Christmas, is the first day of the Liturgical Year. The Mass prepares us this day for the double coming (adventus) of mercy and justice. That is why St. Paul tells us, in the Epistle, to cast off sin in order that, being ready for the coming of Christ as our Saviour, we may also be ready for His coming as our Judge, of which we learn in the Gospel. Let us prepare ourselves, by pious aspirations and by the reformation of our life, for this twofold coming. Jesus our Lord will reward those who yearn for Him and await Him: “Those who trust in Him shall not be confounded.”
INTROIT Ps. 24. 1-3
To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul: in Thee, O my God, I put my trust; let me not be ashamed. Neither let my enemies laugh at me: for none of them that wait on Thee shall be confounded. Ps. 24:4 Show, O Lord, Thy ways to me, and teach me Thy paths.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
COLLECT
Arise in Thy strength, we beseech Thee, O Lord, and come: from the dangers which threaten us because of our sins, be Thy presence our sure defense, be Thy deliverance our safety for evermore. Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.
Very edifying post, Mark. Thank you and happy “new year” to you. May you have a very blessed Advent!