How Is it Already Advent?!
Welcome to the First Sunday of Advent! It is hard to believe that we are kicking off a new Liturgical Year, yet here we are. Advent is a wonderful season of anticipation and hope. We prepare our lives for the Messiah through prayer, fasting, spiritual reading, and generosity.
There are numerous opportunities this Advent season. As usual, we will have two Days of Grace with Confession and Adoration from 6:00am until 10:00pm. The first one will be Monday, December 13th at St. Joseph and the second will be Wednesday, December 22nd at Immaculate Conception.
Also, on the Sundays of Advent we will have a Holy Hour from 4:30pm until 5:30pm at either St. John or St. Lawrence. During these hours, we will pray Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours and have exposition and benediction. Last Advent and Lent these were very well received and provided a nice opportunity for silence and communal prayer.
On December 11th we will be having a Rorate Mass at St. Joseph at 6:30am. I realize that seems extremely early, but it will be worth waking up for. Rorate Masses are an Advent tradition, especially in German-speaking countries. The name comes from the Latin Entrance Antiphon, “Rorate caeli désuper et nubes pluant justum” (Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just). Traditionally, the Mass is offered in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and is celebrated in a dark Church with candlelight. We begin early in the morning so that the entire Mass takes place before sunrise. This year we’ll utilize the new high altar at St. Joseph for the Mass. It will be the first public Mass at the new high altar.
Finally, Advent brings us new Pew Missals (hymnals). This is extremely exciting, even though it involves change. This new Pew Missal is part of our Year of the Eucharist. The settings of Psalms and Communion Antiphons will add solemnity and reverence to our celebration of Mass. Ultimately, they will glorify God and lift up our hearts to Him! Thanks for your patience and perseverance as we all adjust and learn some new beautiful music. To help the adjustment, Adam Fahncke will be compiling an online library of music to help our cantors familiarize themselves with these new pieces of music.
Unrelated to the Liturgical season of Advent, but very important for all of us, next weekend we will announce the finalized Family of Parishes. The priests will find out a couple days before everyone else, but it won’t be communicated in time to be published in the bulletin. We’ll be able to announce the groupings during weekend Masses and it will be on our Facebook page and website on Monday, December 6th.
Stay tuned for these announcements. Advent is the perfect time for big announcements because Advent is a season of hope. Hope is the theological virtue through which we look toward a future accompanied by God’s grace. By the virtue of hope, we entrust our future to God and trust that He’ll take care of us. It will be important for us to be anchored in God in these interesting times.
Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Sean Wilson
