Advent: December 1st

MASS READINGS

December 01, 2024 (Readings on USCCB website)

PROPERS [Show]

Mass Propers for the First Sunday of Advent:

Entrance Antiphon, Cf. Ps 25 (24):1-3, 124: To you, I lift up my soul, O my God. In you, I have trusted; let me not be put to shame. Nor let my enemies exult over me; and let none who hope in you be put to shame.

Alleluia Verse, Ps 85:8: Show us, Lord, your love; and grant us your salvation.

Preface I of Advent: It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God, through Christ our Lord.

For he assumed at his first coming the lowliness of human flesh, and so fulfilled the design you formed long ago, and opened for us the way to eternal salvation, that, when he comes again in glory and majesty and all is at last made manifest, we who watch for that day may inherit the great promise in which now we dare to hope.

And so, with Angels and Archangels, with Thrones and Dominions, and with all the hosts and Powers of heaven, we sing the hymn of your glory, as without end we acclaim:

Communion Antiphon, Cf. Ps 85 (84):13: The Lord will bestow his bounty, and our earth shall yield its increase.

COLLECT PRAYER

First Sunday of Advent: Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that, gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

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Recipes (6)

• Plum Pudding I
• Plum Pudding II
• Plum Pudding III
• Plum Pudding IV
• Plum Pudding V
• Rich Dark Fruit Cake II

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Activities (21)

• Advent and the Year of the Eucharist
• Advent Calendar II
• Advent or Mary Candle I
• Advent or Mary Candle II
• Advent Wreath I
• Advent Wreath II
• Advent Wreath III
• Advent Wreath V
• Advent Wreath: Background and How To Make Your Own Wreath
• Advent Wreath: Making Your Own
• Gifts for Jesus, the Advent Manger
• Jesse Tree Instructions
• Jesse Tree Symbols
• Jesse Tree, Day 1 — Creation
• Posters for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany
• Religion in the Home for Elementary School: December
• Religion in the Home for Elementary School: November
• Religion in the Home for Preschool: December
• Religion in the Home for Preschool: November
• Stir-Up Sunday
• Stir-Up Sunday - First Sunday in Advent

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Prayers (8)

• Blessing of the Advent Wreath
• Hungarian wheat
• Advent Prayers
• Jesse Tree Prayer Service
• Advent Table Blessing 1
• Book of Blessings: Blessing of an Advent Wreath (First Sunday of Advent)
• Book of Blessings: Blessing Before and After Meals: Advent (1st Plan)
• Novena to the Immaculate Conception

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Library (8)

• Advent: Awaiting God's Justice | Pope Benedict XVI
• Caryll Houselander and the Flowering of Christ | Janet Golden
• Our Whole Life Should Be An 'Advent' | Pope Saint John Paul II
• Rejoice, the Lord Is Near | Pope Saint John Paul II
• See Advent's Meaning Through Mary | Pope Benedict XVI
• The Advent Wreath | Fr. William Saunders
• The Joy of Advent | Pope Benedict XVI
• The Kingdom of God Is At Hand | Pope Saint John Paul II

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Blog & Podcasts (21)

• A unique Advent/Christmas album sets the O Antiphons to music
• Advent Reading: The Last Battle
• Advent: Beginning the New Liturgical Year
• Advent: Ever Ancient, Ever New
• Advent: Focusing on the Essential with Expectant Delight
• An Advent Meditation
• Anticipating Christmas, Beginning with Saint Andrew and the Immaculate Conception
• Anticipation
• Celebrating Advent Essentially
• Celebrating St. Nicholas: New Picture Book Review
• Collect-ing for Advent
• Jesus Is the Meaning of Life and History
• Liturgical Living: Part One, Liturgical 101
• Living Advent Simply with Food and Family
• Straws in the Manger -- Preparing Our Hearts for Christ's Birth
• The End and the Beginning: The Cycle of the Liturgical Year
• The Jesse Tree Redux
• The Jesse Tree, Part 1: Relating the Old Testament to Children
• The Jesse Tree, Part 2: Finding the Essential for the Family
• The Spirit of Advent: Listening to Christ
• Two beautiful books to give as Christmas gifts

» Enjoy our Liturgical Seasons series of e-books!

For Catholics, the new Liturgical Year commences with the first Sunday of Advent. In this new Liturgical Year, the Church not only wishes to indicate the beginning of a period, but the beginning of a renewed commitment to the faith by all those who follow Christ, the Lord. This time of prayer and path of penance that is so powerful, rich and intense, endeavors to give us a renewed impetus to truly welcome the message of the One who was incarnated for us. In fact, the entire Liturgy of the Advent season, will spur us to an awakening in our Christian life and will put us in a ‘vigilant’ disposition, to wait for Our Lord Jesus who is coming:

‘Awaken! Remember that God comes! Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but today, now! The one true God, "the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob," is not a God who is there in Heaven, unconcerned with us and our history, but he is the-God-who-comes.’¹

The Season of Advent is therefore a season of vigilant waiting, that prepares us to welcome the mystery of the Word Incarnate, who will give the ‘Light’ to the womb of the Virgin Mary, but essentially this time prepares us not only to welcome this great event but to incarnate it in our lives. We could say that the true light enters the world through the immaculate womb of Mary but it does not stay there. On the contrary, this light flows out into our dark, obscure, sinful lives to illuminate them, so that we can become the light that illuminates the world. For this reason, let us live this time of waiting not only to celebrate a historical memory but to repeat this memory in our lives and in the service of others. To wait for the Lord who comes, means to wait and to watch so that the Word of Love enters inside us and focuses us every day of our lives.

As Saint John Henry Newman reminded us in a homily for the Advent Season: “Advent is a time of waiting, it is a time of joy because the coming of Christ is not only a gift of grace and salvation but it is also a time of commitment because it motivates us to live the present as a time of responsibility and vigilance. This ‘vigilance’ means the necessity, the urgency of an industrious, living ‘wait’. To make all this happen, then we need to wake up, as we are warned by the apostle to the Gentiles, in today's reading to the Romans: ‘Besides this you know what hour it is, how it is full time now for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed” (Rm 13:11).

We must start our journey to ascend to the mountain of the Lord, to be illuminated by His Words of peace and to allow Him to indicate the path to tread (cf. Is 2:1-5). Moreover, we must change our conduct abandoning the works of darkness and put on the ‘armor of light’ and so seek only to do God’s work and to abandon the deeds of the flesh (cf. Rm 13:12-14). Jesus, through the story in the parable, outlines the Christian life style that must not be distracted and indifferent but must be vigilant and recognize even the smallest sign of the Lord’s coming because we don’t know the hour in which He will arrive (cf. Mt 24:39-44).

1 Pope Benedict XVI, Celebration of First Vespers of Advent, Vatican Basilica, December 2006
—Excerpted from the website of Congregation for the Clergy

The First Sunday of Advent marks the new Liturgical Year, and the Church shifts into a new Lectionary Cycle for Sundays, with 2024-25 from Year C, the Gospel of St. Luke. In the Sunday Gospel (Luke 21:25-28, 34-36) Jesus invites us to recognize the signs of the last days. This is a reminder that Advent is not just looking back at the first coming of Christ at Christmas, but our personal preparation for His Second Coming: "Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man."

The traditional Collect (or Opening Prayer) of the last Sunday of the Church year began "Stir up the wills of Thy faithful people, we beseech Thee, O Lord..." With this request to God to "stir up" our wills, the last Sunday of the Church year was traditionally called Stir-Up Sunday. Because we now celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King on the last Sunday of the year, "Stir-Up Sunday" can now be the First Sunday of Advent. The traditional Collect of the First Sunday is asking God to stir up His might: "Stir up Thy might, we beg Thee, and come." Many families create a traditional plum pudding or fruit cake or some other recipe that all the family and guests can "stir-up." This activity of stirring-up the ingredients symbolizes our hearts that must be stirred in preparation for Christ's birth.

What You Need to Know About Advent

• A Short Explanation of the Advent season and Its Significance in the Liturgical Year
• The History, Customs and Folklore of Advent
• Resources for Celebrating Advent in the Home

Commentary on the Mass Readings for the First Sunday of Advent, Year C:
The First Reading is taken from Jeremiah 33:14-16. On this the first Sunday of Advent the Church wishes to remind us of what Advent means—a period of preparation for the Advent—the Coming—of Christ our Savior. This prophecy of Jeremiah intended to encourage the Jews to trust in God in spite of all their present difficulties, can and should encourage us, too. The fulfillment of the ancient prophecies in Christ (this particular one was made six centuries before he came on earth) are a guarantee for us of the truth of his claims—he was the Messiah promised to Abraham, David and the Chosen People. In the Christmas festival each year we commemorate his coming on earth. What the Jews of old looked forward to, we can see fulfilled. The great central hope of their religion and of their history—-their expectancy of One who was to come, has taken place in our history.

The Second Reading is 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2. The teaching of Christ, the Christian faith, is for all races, all places and all times. St. Paul is telling us today what he told the Thessalonians nineteen centuries ago, to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ—the great day of judgement, by living each day as God wants us to live it, namely by living in love and peace in God and our neighbor. Some of the Thessalonians at that time were expecting the Second Coming—the general judgement—in their own day. It didnt' come then, it hasn't come yet, but the particular judgement came to them, and it will come to us, in our day and sooner, rather than later, than we expect it. And that particular judgement, when we draw our last earthly breath, will decide our eternal fate. Advent—the preparation for Christmas, Christ's First Coming, is a most suitable occasion to prepare ourselves for that day.

Today's Gospel is Luke 21:25-28; 34-36. In these verses St. Luke gives our Lord's prophecy concerning the end of the world and how we should prepare ourselves to meet it. That this earth is not our permanent home nobody denies, yet many people live and act as if it were. They see funerals and read of the death of friends and fellow men every day, yet they try to persuade themselves that somehow they will not have to go the same road. But go they must and render an account they must, to the "Son of Man coming with power and in great glory." We have been forewarned and the words of Christ read in today's gospel should awaken us to the true facts of life and of death. He does not ask us to ignore or despise this earth or this life but he does ask us to estimate it for what it is—a period of transit which properly used will earn for us our eternal home. If we judge ourselves daily we need not fear the day of judgement. If we are loyal and faithful to our Christian vocation, our end on earth will not be an end but the beginning of our true life.

What better occasion could we have for taking a serious, sincere look at ourselves and at our attitude to life and the things of this life, than this Advent period. If we can welcome the humble Babe of Bethlehem at Christmas with a sincere and open heart—a heart grateful for all the gifts already given us, and sorrowful for all the meanness and thanklessness we have shown in the past, we can trust and hope that the second and glorious coming of Christ will not be for us a catastrophe but rather the culmination of all our dearest hopes and desires—the beginning of a never-ending Christmas of happiness and joy.
—Excerpt from The Sunday Readings, Cycle C by Fr. Kevin O'Sullivan, O.F.M.

The Jesse Tree: Advent 2024 Printable Jesse Tree guide
Jesse Tree, Day 1 ~ Creation

Jesse Tree Overview
The Jesse Tree dates back to Europe during the Middle Ages. Ancient cathedrals have Jesse Tree designs in their stained glass windows. The "tree" is usually a branch or sapling and is decorated with various symbols that remind us of the purpose and promises of God from Creation to the Birth of Jesus Christ.

Jesse was the father of King David and God promised David that his Kingdom would last forever. Two centuries after the death of King David, God spoke through the prophet Isaiah and said:

And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots: and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and fortitude, the spirit of knowledge, and of the fear of the Lord. (Isaiah 11:1-2)

Each Jesse Tree ornament usually consists of a handmade symbol or drawing that represents one of the major stories of the Old Testament along with a brief verse of Scripture from that story.

• The Jesse Tree or Tree of Jesse Overview
• A Jesse Tree Prayer Service

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Advent Reflection: Memory Awakens Hope

In one of his Christmas stories Charles Dickens tells of a man who lost his emotional memory; that is, he lost the whole chain of feelings and thoughts he had acquired in the encounter with human suffering. This extinction of the memory of love is presented to him as liberation from the burden of the past, but it becomes clear immediately that the whole person has been changed: now, when he meets with suffering, no memories of kindness are stirred within him. Since his memory has dried up. the source of kindness within him has also disappeared. He has become cold and spreads coldness around him.

Goethe deals with the same idea as Dickens in his account of the first celebration of the feast of St. Roch in Bingen after the long interruption caused by the Napoleonic wars. He observes the people as they press, tightly packed, through the church past the image of the saint, and he watches their faces: the faces of the children and the adults are shining, mirroring the joy of the festal day. But with the young people, Goethe reports, it was otherwise. They went past unmoved, indifferent, bored. And he gives an illuminating explanation: they were born in evil times, had nothing good to remember and consequently had nothing to hope for. In other words, it is only the person who has memories who can hope. The person who has never experienced goodness and kindness simply does not know what such things are.

Recently a counselor who spends much of his time talking with people on the verge of despair was speaking in similar terms about his own work: if his client succeeds in recalling a memory of some good experience, he may once again be able to believe in goodness and thus relearn hope; then there is a way out of despair. Memory and hope are inseparable. To poison the past does not give hope: it destroys emotional foundations.

Sometimes Charles Dickens' story strikes me as a vision of contemporary experience. This man who let himself be robbed of the heart's memory by the delusion of a false liberation — do we not find him with us today, in a generation whose past has been poisoned by a particular program of liberation that has stifled hope? When we read of the pessimism with which our young people look toward the future, we ask ourselves, Why? Is it that, in the midst of material affluence, they have no memory of human goodness that would allow them to hope? By outlawing the emotions, by satirizing joy, have we not trampled on the root of hope?

These reflections bring us straight to the significance of the Christian season of Advent. For Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent's intention to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church's year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart's memory so that it can discern the star of hope. All the feasts in the Church's calendar are events of remembrance and hence events of hope. These events, of such great significance for mankind, which are preserved and opened up by faith's calendar, are intended to become personal memories of our own life history through the celebration of holy seasons by means of liturgy and custom. Our personal memories are nourished by mankind's great memories; in turn, it is only by translating them into personal terms that these great memories are kept alive. Man's ability to believe always depends in part on faith having become dear on the path of life, on the humanity of God having manifested itself through the humanity of men. No doubt each of us could tell his own story here as to what the various memories of Christmas, Easter or other festivals mean in his life.

It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.
—Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Seek That Which is Above

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Roman Station Churches of Advent and Christmas
Roman Stational churches or station churches are the churches that are appointed for special morning and evening services during Lent, Easter and other important days during the Liturgical Year. This ancient Roman tradition started in order to strengthen the sense of community within the Church in Rome, as this system meant that the Holy Father would visit each part of the city and celebrate Mass with the congregation.

"So vividly was the station saint before the minds of the assembled people that he seemed present in their very midst, spoke and worshiped with them. Therefore the missal still reads, "Statio ad sanctum Paulum," i.e., the service is not merely in the church of St. Paul, but rather in his very presence. In the stational liturgy, then, St. Paul was considered as actually present and acting in his capacity as head and pattern for the worshipers. Yes, even more, the assembled congregation entered into a mystical union with the saint by sharing in his glory and by seeing in him beforehand the Lord's advent in the Mass" (Pius Parsch, The Church's Year of Grace, Vol. 2, p. 71).

The Lenten stations are the most prominent since they encompass every day during the Lenten season. However, there are other times of the year with traditional station churches. The Advent and Christmas seasons include the four Advent Sundays, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day with three different churches for the three Masses of the Day, and the three feasts after Christmas and the Octave Day of Christmas (January 1) and Epiphany, and the Advent Ember Days.

For more information, see:

• The Stational Church by Jennifer Gregory Miller
• Roman Pilgrimage: The Station Churches, a review of George Weigel's book by Jennifer Gregory Miller
• Following the Roman Stations by Jennifer Gregory Miller
• A Peek Into Our Daily Roman Station Walk by Jennifer Gregory Miller
• At Home: Lent and Easter by Florence Berger
• Pontifical Academy of the Martyrs: Lenten Stations (Text in Italian)—the Academy has been encouraging the display and veneration of relics at the stational churches.
• The Pontifical North American College: The Roman Station Liturgy—includes commentary for each Stational day.
  
• Roman Station Churches with Fr. Bill

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First Sunday of Advent
Station with Santa Maria Maggiore (St. Mary Major):
We enter the house of God. Mary, God's Mother, is preparing the crib in which to lay her Son; she comes to meet us. What a beautiful model of preparation! The stational church is St. Mary Major at the Crib and its stational Saint meets us! Already on this first day of preparation for Christmas, we see the Mother of God at the crib! Mary now leads us to the altar, where she speaks to us and leads us in prayer. We ask our blessed Mother Mary, the fruitful earth fecundated by the goodness of the Lord, the patroness on the first day of the New Year as well as on this first day of Advent, to obtain for us the grace to prepare with becoming honor for the approaching solemnity of our redemption. Mary is the highest expression, the perfect model of true Advent spirit. On this account do we begin our Advent observance in the great Marian Church Ad praesepe, at the crib. To the Christians of Rome this church was Bethlehem. In 342 A.D. it was built to commemorate the Council of Ephesus, and dedicated to the Mother of God. Our best model for the Advent-Christmas season is, surely, Mary our Mother (adapted from Pius Parsch, OSB, The Church's Year of Grace and Martin Hellriegel, Vine and Branches).

For more on Santa Maria Maggiore, see:

• Churches of Rome
• Rome Art Lover
• Roman Churches
• PNAC
• Aleteia

For further information on the Station Churches, see The Stational Church.