Let every heart prepare him room
The season of Advent is one of hope, anticipation, joy and prayerful reflection. From the Latin adventus (meaning ‘arrival’), Advent prompts us to new beginnings. It is a time to prepare our hearts for the coming Christ child, and to give voice to our longing for a richer, more abundant life in God. During this time of expectant waiting for the coming of Christ, we prepare for both the celebration of Jesus’ birth at Christmas and for Jesus’ second coming.
The four weeks of Advent begin the new year of the Church’s liturgical calendar. Advent offers a time for us to reflect on our personal and collective readiness to receive Jesus with open hearts and minds. We are able to consider our relationships with God, others, self and creation and are invited to participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation to free us to be bearers of Jesus to our world.
Weekly Advent resources
A number of resources have been developed to help you enrich your Advent journey, including weekly guided reflections on the Advent readings, Sunday gospel reflections, and other multimedia resources to help you engage with Scripture from a contemporary perspective. Our hope is that these opportunities might deepen your sense of Advent anticipation, as you await and prepare for God’s great gift of love and hope for our world: Jesus.
- Journeying Advent—A Sunday gospel reflection offering individuals and/or groups the opportunity to read, reflect and pray with the gospel.
- Scripture reflections—A short video reflection by Scripture scholar Fr Trevor Tibbertsma on the Sunday Mass readings. Ideal for a parish, school or home setting.
- Advent Voices—An audio resource exploring key figures of the Advent readings through a personal lens.
- Real Conversations—A video resource exploring the big questions confronting us during this time of pandemic.
- Songs of hope: An Advent playlist—A Spotify playlist featuring Advent hymns, anthems and songs from a broad range of eras, styles and artists. A Christmas playlist is also available for the Season of Christmas.
This Advent and Christmas, all across the Archdiocese of Melbourne, Catholic parishes are uniting to share the love of Christ with our city after a difficult year. As part of the suite of resources developed for parishes, a 3m x 1m banner has been delivered to each parish in the Archdiocese with the simple message of ‘Jesus: Gift of love & hope for our world’.
In addition to the banner, parishes have been provided with free, easy-to-use templates, which can be used online (via social media and websites) or printed to suit your parish’s needs. If your parish has not received these resources, please contact proclaim@cam.org.au.
Parishioners are also invited to share in this message of hope and love by downloading any of the following resources:
