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Master·evangeli.net

Today's Gospel + short theological explanation

First Sunday of Advent (B)
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Gospel text (Mk 13:33-37): Jesus said to his disciples: “Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come. It is like a man traveling abroad. He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch. Watch... May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’”

"Advent": memory of the coming of the Saviour and the hope of his glorious return

EDITORIAL TEAM evangeli.net (based on texts by Benedict XVI) (Città del Vaticano, Vatican)

Today, Sunday, with the invitation by the Lord to a vigilant attitude begins Advent, a very evocative religious season of great religious depth, because it is interwoven with hope and spiritual expectations: every time the Christian community prepares to commemorate the Redeemer’s birth, it feels a quiver of joy which to a certain extent it communicates to the whole of society.

In Advent, Christians relive a dual impulse of the spirit: on the one hand, they raise their eyes towards the final destination of their pilgrimage through history, which is the glorious return of the Lord Jesus; on the other, remembering with emotion His birth in Bethlehem, they kneel before the Crib. The hope for Christians is turned to the future, but remains firmly rooted in an event of the past which guides us in the present.

—I believe and confess that in the fullness of time, the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary: "Born of a woman, born under the law", as St. Paul writes.