ADVENT

The Liturgical Year opens with the first Sunday of Advent. This is the liturgical period in which the Church annually relives the Chosen People's time of awaiting the Messiah. For the faithful this is a time of awaiting the Lord, a time of longing for God's grace and for God's friendship of which we are deprived because of our human failings and sinfulness. This is also a time of longing for the final coming of Christ at the end of time and a period of reflection over one's personal life and final things. Traditionally, it was also a time of fasting, symbolized in church by the penitential purple vestments of the priest.