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Show ADVENT. Another Ecclesiastical or Christian year is passed and gone, with all its sorrows and joys, all its opportunities and blessings. The new year begins with the first Sunday in Advent, Dec. 3. What does this season mean? What is its purpose? It is an article of the faith, which we daily profess in our creed, and which is taught in Holy Scripture, that all men shall rise again in their bodies at the last day, to be judged according to their works, j And that "He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the j dead." The time of Advent cannot be considered festal, nor can it be classed I among the movable feasts; and yet the : first day of Advent is, in another sense,, movable, inasmuch as it happens al-t ways on the fourth Sunday before.i Christmas which festival itself falU.r on different days of the week. Adverse means coming, and the four weekto whereof it consists represent the fouas thousand years which preceded that coming or tne son ot uoa.mto tn'ee I world. ?11 There are certain times and seasonld in the religious year as well as in tl, business year that call us for specied action-and attention, and the hoelf season of Advent that we are aboit-to aboit-to enter is one of them. or Merchants, as you know, take an ahe count of stock at regular intervaUe; business concerns of every kind coust up their gains. So it is Avith Our Hoair Mother Church. Lent and Advent a de our seasons of religious accounting, avlr. their importance as a help in worki-le-out our salvation can not be que:ng tioned. m-Jesus m-Jesus Christ our Saviour is the auth on, of our redemption, and the source -eir all our profit and gain in the coricer:rn of the soul". Hoiy- Cliurch, guided 4 a an instinct that 'is manifestly divi'ng has set apart the Season before lut coming and the season before His ago" and crucifixion as the special times fre" us to pause and consider what progn1uj we are making in the way of salvati',a" At this holy season we are specia11 appealed to as loyal children to p;ner pare for the coming of the " Infa.3 Saviour. '' The voice of Advent is the voice vei Saint John the Baptist crying in tV-' wilderness. "Prepare ve the way f the Lord, make straight His paths,"' and ,the spirit of repentance Is thi? response that is sought in. every Catholic soul. It is now the time for us to arise from the defilements of sin. What meaning can this holy season i have to any soul in the state of mortal sin that does not immediately resolve to repentance? If the spirit of Advent touches us at all, it should, make the sinfiA pause In their career of sin, the lukewarm fervant. . Holy Church leads us directly to the sacraments, as they are the only divine di-vine antidote against sin. So let us all seek purification in the Blood of the Lamb, and thus be prepared pre-pared to offer due homage to the Babe of Betheleum. . - |