Advent: Beginning the New Liturgical Year
By Jennifer Gregory Miller | Nov 25, 2016
Similar to last year, Advent 2016 begins on the Sunday right after Thanksgiving. Applying the rule from Universal Norms of the Liturgical Year and the New General Roman Calendar:
Advent begins with First Vespers (Evening Prayer I) of the Sunday that falls on the closest to 30 November and it ends before First Vespers (Evening Prayer I) of Christmas...
makes November 27 the earliest Advent can begin, and the latest it can begin is December 3. This season will be the longest Advent can be, with a full week for the Fourth Week of Advent. For those lighting candles daily for the Advent wreath, an extra purple candle or two might be needed to replace the candle from Week 1 and maybe even for Week 2.
New Beginnings: Mercy and Conversion
Advent starts the new Liturgical Year and can be seen as a another opportunity to spiritually begin anew. Holy Mother Church knows how many times we need to start again! There are particular themes in the Liturgy throughout Advent (as I quoted last year): a spirit of waiting, of conversion and joyful hope. These liturgical themes inspire what we do with the family or Domestic Church during Advent.
The Year of Mercy has just ended, but as Jeff Mirus pointed out, it was just a beginning; we are living what we learned this past year. The attitude of conversion continues and grows. The parable of the Loving Father to his Prodigal Son was used often during the Year of Mercy as an example of a spirit of conversion and it also applies to beginning again in Advent. St. Josemaría Escrivá sums up this Advent theme of conversion and mercy:
Human life is in some way a constant returning to our Father’s house. We return through contrition, through the conversion of heart which means a desire to change, a firm decision to improve our life and which, therefore, is expressed in sacrifice and self-giving. We return to our Father’s house by means of that sacrament of pardon in which, by confessing our sins, we put on Jesus Christ again and become his brothers, members of God’s family.
God is waiting for us, like the father in the parable, with open arms, even though we don’t deserve it. It doesn’t matter how great our debt is. Just like the prodigal son, all we have to do is open our heart, to be homesick for our Father’s house, to wonder at and rejoice in the gift which God makes us of being able to call ourselves his children, of really being his children, even though our response to him has been so poor (Christ is Passing By, no. 64).
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/blog/index.cfm?id=272