Advent: Looking Toward Christmas

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, a time of preparation for the coming celebration of our Savior's coming at Christmas. Pope Benedict XVI welcomed the season on Sunday.

This Sunday we begin, by the grace of God, a new liturgical year, which opens naturally with Advent, a time of preparation for the Lord's nativity. In the constitution on the Liturgy, the Second Vatican Council states that the Church "presents in the annual cycle the whole mystery of Christ, from the incarnation and the nativity, to the ascension, the day of pentecost, and the expectation of the blessed hope and return of the Lord."