COME LORD JESUS, COME - THE SEASON OF ADVENT BEGINS.........

Preparing, Waiting, Watching, Eagerly, Joyfully, Hopefully, anticipating the Coming of the Lord Jesus, that is our Catholic-Christian focus and the spirit of the Season of Advent. The Lord Jesus' Coming is past, present, and future, oriented. He came as God's co-Eternal Son, who was born as Man into the world, more than two thousand years ago. He comes again each day, each Advent, when we open our hearts and minds to the Lord Jesus and to other persons, in Christian discipleship. He will come again in glory at the end of time, as the Judge of Heaven and Earth and the King of the Universe.
The First Sunday of Advent begins the new Liturgical Year and summons the Church to embrace anew, the fullness of the Paschal Mystery of the Christ, in high seasons, ordinary time, solemnities, feasts, and memorials, of Word, Eucharist, and the Prayer, Worship, Ministry of the Community of Believers in Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Liturgical Year 2010, we open today, is Year C, in the cycle of Readings from the Lectionary. The Gospel of Luke, is the primary proclamation of the Holy Gospel during this Church Year. Luke's Gospel was written to appeal to the Gentiles, thus underscoring the universality of the Good News for all believing peoples throughout the world.
At St. Philomene's Church last night and today, like in Catholic-Christian churches and homes everywhere, we blessed and lit the Advent Wreath for the first time this year. St. Philomene's Music Ministry Director, Alan Nissila, composed a beautiful Advent Wreath Blessing Service, with which we opened our Sunday Masses. The introduction described the three-fold symbolism represented by the Advent Wreath which,"reminds of of our yearning for God. The wreath's circular shape tells us of God's everlasting love and faithfulness. Its evergreen branches tell us of eternal life and God's desire for us to live with Him forever. The four candles remind us of the passing of time, our human history into which God has entered through Jesus Christ". The Advent Season,"is a time of grace, a time for a new advent of Jesus into our lives". Today, as we light the first candle around our Advent Wreaths we are bidding the flame of faith to make us always ready, preparing, waiting, watching, eagerly, joyfully, hopefully, for the Lord's Coming now and at the end of time. The Second Glorious Coming of Christ is the theme of Luke's Gospel today, just as the Parousia, the Apocalypse, the End Times, have been the focus of the final Sundays of the past Church Year. And so, as members of the workaday world and secular society frontload and hype Christmas into a commercial holiday and premature season of socializing, devoid of its true meaning, let us as members of the Body of Christ, enter into and observe, with the joy and gladness of anticipation and preparation, the Advent Season, so as to be properly, spiritually, ready for the great feasting as God's Family in the Solemnity of the Nativity of Jesus the Christ, when Christmas comes, in twenty six days. Come Lord Jesus, Come !!! For You are Emmanuel, "God With Us...Yesterday, Today, Forever". Alleluia, Amen.
Joy + Hope in the Coming of the Lord Jesus..........Fr. Troy