“O Lord, you are our father, we are the clay, and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands.” Advent begins a new liturgical (church) year. This is “Year B” in our lectionary, and on Sundays we will often hear passages from the Gospel of Mark. Mark has no stories about Jesus’ birth, which introduce Jesus to the reader, like the Gospels of Matthew and Luke have. Mark has no prologue like John’s Gospel has. But the readings we will hear during Advent are themselves an introduction, a prologue to the life of Jesus. This Sunday in our Hebrew Scripture reading we meet The Father, who has prepared a world and a people for the incarnate Son. We will meet this purposeful Father again on Dec 8, the Immaculate Conception feast day. In the readings for that day, God remedies the rent in creation made by Adam and Eve through a new Eve, Mary. And we hear of God’s inexorable plan to save: “He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world … in accord with the favor of his will …”. Can you see the purposeful Father working things out in your life through the graces given you in your own history? The Scriptures of Advent build up from week to week. They are the divine author’s prologue to something new and big that is coming. Everything is in readiness. Are we?
– Blog entry by Sister Mary Garascia