A number of resources have been developed to help 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.
Scripture reflections—Sunday Mass readings
To break open the Mass readings for the First Sunday of Advent, Scripture scholar Fr Trevor Tibbertsma explores the central characters and themes, posing insightful questions for personal reflection and/or discussion in a parish, school or home setting. The following questions are also offered for personal or group reflection.
Questions for reflection:
- What are some ways we can ‘be on our guard and stay awake’ (Mark 13:33) this Advent?
- Can you think of a story or a time in your life which illustrates something of Isaiah’s hope in something not yet fulfilled?
- Is there a way to talk about the end of the world, the Second Coming, without being gloomy and sowing fear?
Further questions for discussion:
- What did you hear that was new to you? Excited you? Challenged you?
- How might this assist you to prepare, anticipate, engage in Jesus’ coming?
- How might this be used in your context?
Advent Voices: ‘Stay Awake’
This audio resource explores key figures of the Advent readings through a personal lens. During this first week, Fr Elio Capra looks at the meaning of Advent and how we are called to ‘stay awake’. Fr Elio is a well-known Salesian priest and a theology teacher and lecturer in Melbourne. He has recently established a new blog site, Welcome to Art and Soul: Uncovering the Spiritual in Art.
Real Conversations
A four-part series exploring the big questions confronting us during this time of pandemic. As well as providing material for individual or group reflection during this season of Advent, each episode shares different ways we can survive, thrive and look forward with hope borne from faith—in a God who loves, cares and accompanies us. In this first episode, our guest Karen Rolfe looks at loss and grief and the impact they have on our lives.
Songs of hope: An Advent Spotify playlist
Our hopes and dreams for the coming kingdom are often most meaningfully expressed through song. This year, as opportunities to meet and sing together are limited by COVID restrictions, music can still form a rich part of our Advent experience, but perhaps in a different way.
This Spotify playlist features examples of familiar Advent hymns and anthems, and some less familiar Advent-themed songs, from a broad range of eras, styles, and artists. Two pieces of music have been selected for each day of Advent, each broadly related to a passage from the daily Mass readings. You might like to use the playlist as a daily devotional tool—individually or with your household—look at the Mass readings and then listening prayerfully to the songs selected for that day. Or you might simply like to use it as a kind of ‘soundtrack’ for your Advent journey, listening to it as you drive or cook dinner or do the housework.
A Christmas playlist is also available for the Season of Christmas.
1st Sunday of Advent (29 November)
‘Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come.’
—Mark 13:35
- ‘Hark, tis the watchman’s cry’, Micah Joy
- ‘Wait for the Lord’, The Songs of Taizé Session Singers
Feast of St Andrew, Apostle (30 November)
‘Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.’
—Psalm 19:4
- How beautiful upon the mountains’ (John Stainer), Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford
- ‘One Voice’, The Wailin’ Jennys
Tuesday of the 1st week of Advent (1 December)
‘In his days may righteousness flourish
and peace abound, until the moon is no more.’
—Psalm 71 (72): 7
- ‘O Day of Peace’, Josh Garrels
- ‘Bring us, O Lord God’ (William Harris, words John Donne), Choir of the Queen’s College, Oxford
Wednesday of the 1st week of Advent (2 December)
‘Fresh and green are the pastures
where he gives me repose.
Near restful waters he leads me,
to revive my drooping spirit.’
—Psalm 22(23):2–3
- ‘The Lord is my shepherd’ (John Rutter), Cambridge Singers
- ‘Where the green grass grows’, Eric Bibb
Thursday of the 1st week of Advent (3 December)
‘Give thanks to the Lord for he is good,
for his love has no end.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in men;
it is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in princes.’
—Psalm 117(118):1, 8–9
- ‘Abide’, Liz Vice
- ‘Hiding places’, The Cashmans
Friday of the 1st week of Advent (4 December)
‘The Lord is my light and my salvation.’
—Psalm response
- ‘Light’, Gungor
- ‘You are the light’, The Masters Chorale
Saturday of the 1st week of Advent (5 December)
‘Moreover, the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days, on the day when the Lord binds up the injuries of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.’
—Isaiah 30:26
- ‘A light’, The Brilliance,
- ‘Light of a clear blue morning’ (Dolly Parton), The Wailin’ Jennys
