30th November 2014

Happy New Year

Advent Sunday is the beginning of our new Christian year. Unlike the beginning of our calendar year, there will be no parties, no count down to midnight. Indeed most people won’t even notice it’s begun!
Perhaps that’s not surprising, given that we begin it by being more “low key” than the previous Sunday!
Gone are the flowers; the white has turned to a more sombre purple and even our celebration of the Mass is more simple!
Why? Because we are beginning to look forward to our real “New Beginning”: “the New Beginning” for all humanity with the Birth of our Saviour more than 2000 years ago, which we will celebrate at Christmas.
But there is one thing we could take from the Calendar New Year to help us, and that is the idea of making a New Year Advent Resolution.
What sort of resolution? Well something that brings us closer to God. A little more time in prayer; at home or by getting to Mass earlier: we might try reading some scriptures e.g. use the Newsletter to look up the Sunday readings during the week, when we have a little more time to think about how they speak to us. Or perhaps fast.
Miss a meal and give what we save to the poor… So… take up an Advent New Year Resolution. Given all the “busyness” of preparing for Christmas, not only is it a good New Beginning to our year but the perfect way to prepare to celebrate Christmas. And then, the rest of the world will watch us celebrate, food, presents and parties etc etc.
So good at it all are we…
They’ll probably join in too!!!


Repeated from earlier in 2012