This Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent and the new liturgical year, which for Traditional Christians is known as cycle B in the Church Calendar and is where we light the first candle and call it hope. We await in pregnant anticipation for the coming of Christ the first time as a babe.
Advent is like a mini Lent and is a penitential season. The Gospel reading for today is
St. Mark 13:33-37 where Christ warns us:
Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is. It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch. Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning— lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping. 37 And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”
So we watch and wait for the great second coming and strive to be like the five wise virgins while still going about out business not worrying when the end will come and expanding the kingdom of God as we share the Gospel message abroad.
