“Advent is the time we are given to welcome the Lord who comes to encounter us and also to verify our longing for God, to look forward and prepare ourselves for Christ’s return.”
~ Pope Francis
“Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the Lord.”
~ Zechariah 2:14
“The Lord is coming, always coming. When you have ears to hear and eyes to see, you will recognize Him at any moment of your life. Life is Advent. Life is recognizing the coming of the Lord.”
~ Fr. Henri Nouwen
“The whole of our life must be an advent, a vigilant awaiting of the final coming of Christ.”
~ St. John Paul II
“Advent is a journey towards Bethlehem. May we let ourselves be drawn by the light of God made man.”
~ Pope Francis
“At this Christmas when Christ comes, will He find a warm heart? Mark the season of Advent by loving and serving the others with God’s own love and concern.”
~ St. Teresa of Calcutta
“If we would please this Divine Infant, we too must become children, simple and humble. We must carry to Him flowers of virtue, of meekness, of mortification, of charity. We must clasp Him in the arms of our love.”
~ St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori
“A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”
~ Isaiah 40:3
“Open wide your door to the one who comes. Open your soul, throw open the depths of your heart to see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the sweetness of grace. Open your heart and run to meet the Sun of eternal light that illuminates all men.”
~ St. Ambrose of Milan
“Advent, this powerful liturgical season that we are beginning, invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence. It is an invitation to understand that the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us, signs of the attention he has for each one of us.”
~ Pope Benedict XVI
“Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.”
~ Philippians 4:4-5
“It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.”
~ Pope Benedict XVI
“In the seasons of our Advent–waking, working, eating, sleeping, being–each breath is a breathing of Christ into the world.”
~ Caryll Houselander
“The endurance of darkness is the preparation for great light.”
~ St. John of the Cross
“Advent is the time of promise. It is not yet the time of fulfillment.”
~ Fr. Alfred Delp
“Advent is, so to speak, an intense training that directs us decisively toward him who already came, who will come, and who comes continuously.”
~ St. John Paul II
“Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”
~ Isaiah 7:14
St. John Paul II Sermon on Advent
“In Advent we await an event which occurs in history and at the same time transcends it. As it does every year, this event will take place on the night of the Lord’s Birth. The shepherds will hasten to the stable in Bethlehem; later the Magi will arrive from the East. Both the one and the other in a certain sense symbolize the entire human family. The exhortation that rings out in today’s liturgy: ‘Let us go joyfully to meet the Lord’ spreads to all countries, to all continents, among every people and nation.
“In today’s Gospel we heard the Lord’s invitation to be watchful: ‘Watch, therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming’. The exhortation to be watchful resounds many times in the liturgy, especially in Advent, a season of preparation not only for Christmas, but also for Christ’s definitive and glorious coming at the end of time. It therefore has a distinctly eschatological meaning and invites the believer to spend every day and every moment in the presence of the One ‘who is and who was and who is come’, to whom the future of the world and of man belongs. This is Christian hope!”
St. Josemaría Escrivá Sermon on Advent
“On this first Sunday of Advent, when we begin to count the days separating us from the birth of the Savior … we have considered the reality of our Christian vocation: how our Lord has entrusted us with the mission of attracting other souls to sanctity, encouraging them to get close to him, to feel united to the Church, to extend the kingdom of God to all hearts. Jesus wants to see us dedicated, faithful, responsive. He wants us to love him. It is his desire that we be holy, very much his own.
“This time of Advent is a time for hope. These great horizons of our Christian vocation, this unity of life built on the presence of God our Father, can and ought to be a daily reality. As our Lady, along with me, to make it come true. Try to imagine how she spent these months, waiting for her Son to be born. And our Lady, Holy Mary, will make of you alter Christus, ipse Christus: another Christ, Christ himself!”
St. Bernard of Clairvaux Sermon on Advent
“It is fitting, my brethren, that we should celebrate this season of Advent with all possible devotion, rejoicing in so great a consolation, marveling at so great a condescension, inflamed with love by so great a manifestation of charity. But let us not think of that advent only whereby the Son of man has ‘come to seek and to save that which was lost,’ but also of that other by which He will come again and will take us to Himself. Would to God you kept these two advents constantly in your thoughts, revolving them in assiduous meditation, pondering in your hearts how much we have received by the first, how much we are promised at the second!”
St. Leonard of Port Maurice on Advent
Come, Thou, bread of angels and satisfy the cravings of my soul;
Come, Thou, glowing furnace of charity, and inflame my soul with the fires of divine love
Come, Shepherd divine, and guide me
Come, Eternal father, my hope, my life, my joy, and source of all my happiness
Come, Thou dearest object of all my aspirations
Come, Thou comforter of the sorrowful, light supernatural of the soul
Come, Thou, who art the solace and refreshment of the weary
Come to me, O Thou, for whom the nations prayed, and for whom the patriarchs sighed!
Come to me, O Thou, the desired of ages, joy of angels, glory of the heavens, supreme delight of the saints!
Come to me, for I yearn for Thee
Come to me, for Thou hast transpierced me with the arrows of Thy love
Come, delay not, for my heart waxes faint, and I feel that I cannot exist without Thee
Come, O Jesus, I beseech Thee, come.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem on the Twofold Coming of Christ
“We do not preach only one coming of Christ, but a second as well, much more glorious than the first. The first coming was marked by patience; the second will bring the crown of a divine kingdom.
In general, whatever relates to our Lord Jesus Christ has two aspects. There is a birth from God before the ages, and a birth from a virgin at the fullness of time. There is a hidden coming, like that of rain on fleece, and a coming before all eyes, still in the future.
At the first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. At his second coming he will be clothed in light as in a garment. In the first coming he endured the cross, despising the shame; in the second coming he will be in glory, escorted by an army of angels.
We look then beyond the first coming and await the second. At the first coming we said: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. At the second we shall say it again; we shall go out with the angels to meet the Lord and cry out in adoration: Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
The Saviour will not come to be judged again, but to judge those by whom he was judged. At his own judgement he was silent; then he will address those who committed the outrages against him when they crucified him and will remind them: You did these things, and I was silent.
His first coming was to fulfil his plan of love, to teach men by gentle persuasion. This time, whether men like it or not, they will be subjects of his kingdom by necessity.
The prophet Malachi speaks of the two comings. And the Lord whom you seek will come suddenly to his temple: that is one coming.
Again he says of another coming: Look, the Lord almighty will come, and who will endure the day of his entry, or who will stand in his sight? Because he comes like a refiner’s fire, a fuller’s herb, and he will sit refining and cleansing.
These two comings are also referred to by Paul in writing to Titus: The grace of God the Savior has appeared to all men, instructing us to put aside impiety and worldly desires and live temperately, uprightly, and religiously in this present age, waiting for the joyful hope, the appearance of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Notice how he speaks of a first coming for which he gives thanks, and a second, the one we still await.
That is why the faith we profess has been handed on to you in these words: He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
Our Lord Jesus Christ will therefore come from heaven. He will come at the end of the world, in glory, at the last day. For there will be an end to this world, and the created world will be made new.”
St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier on Advent
ADVENT, my dear daughters, is a time of recollection, of salvation; it is a season of grace of which we must profit. From December 17 the anthems of the Office begin with, “O” to express adoration and love. Such were the sentiments in which our Blessed Lady passed the days preceding the birth of Our Lord. How ardently must she have desired to see this little Child Who was Himself the author of her days. She was in continual contemplation.
Jesus is born again in our hearts; let us adore Him as Mary did. I always look forward to this holy season and see it pass with regret. It suggests so many holy thoughts which nourish our souls; we may unite with the Patriarchs and Prophets in asking for the coming of the Messiah, that is to say, His coming into our souls. Let us listen to David praying for his coming one thousand years before His birth, and speaking to Him as if his eyes already rested on Him, and Isaiah, who seven hundred years previously, said of Him: He shall eat butter and honey, and from His mouth shall flow sweetness and goodness. Elsewhere it is said of the Messiah: Neither shall any man hear His voice in the streets. Religious should follow His example in everything. Never should we speak loud in the novitiate nor in the regular places.
During this holy time, my dear daughters, we ought to meditate continually on the self-abasement of our God, we ought to excite in ourselves the same ardent desire for Holy Communion, that the Patriarchs felt for the coming of the Messiah, preparing ourselves for it by frequent and ardent ejaculations. In your different employments, and in the midst of all your labours you may occupy your minds with these thoughts. Those who are employed in washing the linen may longingly sigh after Our Lord, uniting the suffering they have to bear from the cold with that which He endured in the manger, where He had neither roof nor covering. I am sure, my poor children, that those amongst you who were washing the whole of yesterday in this bitter cold must have suffered much; but I am quite sure also that such a day, offered to God, will have been most meritorious, and I feel very certain that all our sisters who work so hard will escape a long purgatory if they are careful to do all with the intention of pleasing God.
Now is the time to choose with whom we will visit the stable of Bethlehem. You can select whom you will; some will ask the Shepherds to be their companions, others the Magi; for my part I confess that I always seek the company of the Shepherds; I dare not aspire higher. I dearly love those poor Shepherds who, immediately they were called, threw down their crooks and hastened to Jesus. They did not say, “Who will take care of our flocks? The wolves will devour them, besides we know not where we have to go.” This is how you ought to act, my dear children, that you may find God Who calls you by the voice of your Superiors. We must obey without hesitation or delay. Ah! I much prefer little shepherdesses to queens who are not obedient.
MAXIM: You ought to make humility and poverty your chief study. These virtues belong particularly to the God of the Manger and the Cross.
