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For centuries now, every twenty-five years the Church sets aside a graced time of Jubilee.  These Jubilee Years are “a significant moment in the life of the Church in which she celebrates the year of messianic favor inaugurated by Christ through his Incarnation and Paschal Mystery” (cf. Lk 4:19, St. John Paul II, Tertio Millennio adveniente, nos. 11-16). The Year of our Lord 2025 is just such a Jubilee, and so it stands apart as a new opportunity to receive the Lord’s mercy, to give gratitude for his Holy Church.

While the traditional reckoning of the Advent Ember Days is in the Third Week of Advent (nearest St. Lucy’s day), the Ordinariate was given permission to shift them to the First Week of Advent. This was done to safeguard the full observation of the O Antiphons (Sapientiatide), from 17-24 December (this week) in the Ordinariate calendar.

The term “Advent” derives from the Latin adventus, meaning “coming” or “arrival.” Thus it’s a time of waiting and preparation, filled with joy but also with repentance and penance. It anticipates the “coming of Christ” from three different perspectives: the 1st coming in Christ’s Nativity in Bethlehem, Christ’s reception in the heart of the believer, and the return of Christ as King of the Universe at His Second Coming (which we celebrated two weeks ago).