PREPARING FOR ADVENT 2012 AND LITURGICAL YEAR 2013............

On this last day of the Liturgical Year and with the start of the Season of Advent tomorrow, I am completing my annual preparations of more than four and a half decades to prayerfully, spiritually, and liturgically, celebrate the first two sacred seasons the 2013 Liturgical Year.  We discussed the uniqueness of the Catholic-Christian Church Year on Thursday in the weekly seminar Rita Spillane and I, are having with Sacred Heart School teacher Paul, who is a Candidate in the Parish Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, R.C.I.A.  How aware or understanding most Catholic-Christians about how the new year in the Church begins in late November, or early December, in the Four Sundays and days leading up to Christmas, is the official start of the Liturgical Year, which runs annually from Advent to Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent, Easter, and returns to Ordinary Time; culminating in the Solemnity of Christ the King, the Sunday feast we celebrated last week.  I urge you as Catholic-Christian Disciples, or Inquirers into or interested in Catholicism and Christianity, to invest your energies and efforts into the newest of the Liturgical Year about to dawn and the Advent Season in preparation for the celebration of the Christmas Season.  My personal and priestly preparations for Advent and Christmas this year are far different than they have ever been in the quarter of a century I have been ordained a Priest of Jesus Christ.  Physically away from parish life, I am literally removed from my books, papers, other resources, and personal effects, which remain at Our Lady of Lourdes rectory, while I am in this state of flux.  Most of my preparation this year is from materials online, for which I am grateful, but is different being the bookish person I have always been.  Be assured you too can find ample resources for your own personal and family celebration of Advent and Christmas, as well as those you can find and will receive in your own church congregation.  I will also blog about the Days of Advent and Christmas during the next six weeks.  Please join me as we await the wonderful three fold Coming of Jesus The Christ............tdp