Saints Peter & Paul  

This Sunday is the beginning of the Church’s liturgical year, so HAPPY NEW YEAR! During the coming months we will be looking mainly at the life of Christ through the lens of the Gospel according to St Luke. One of the gifts given us by the ecumenical council Vatican II was an expansion of the readings of the Bible during the Masses of the year. Prior to Vatican II’s reform of the liturgy, the Mass readings were the same each day every year, which meant that we were being enriched by a limited exposure to God’s holy word in the Scriptures.

Following the conclusion of Vatican II the Church organized the Sunday Bible readings into a three-year cycle and the weekday readings into a two-year cycle. That enables us to be nourished by a much larger exposure to the Scriptures, especially for the life and ministry of our Savior Jesus Christ. So in year A we encounter Jesus from the viewpoint of the Gospel according to Matthew, in year B according to Mark’s Gospel, and in year C according to the Gospel presented by Luke. The Gospel according to John is given to us each year during the Easter season and also in year B, since Mark’s Gospel is the shortest and doesn’t fill as many Sundays.

We have just concluded our journey with Mark and now we begin this week to walk through the life of Jesus with Luke, Like the other Gospel writers, the Advent journey with Luke begins with the end of the story of Jesus and the redemption or goal for which he came into our world and took to himself a human nature. It’s like any trip we might take: we ordinarily need to know where we want to end up if we’re going to get there. It’s true that sometimes we might just get in the car and say to ourselves “I think I’ll just head out and see where I’m going as I go along,” but usually we have some destination in mind.

So, for the first Sunday in Advent we hear a prophecy of Jeremiah ─ “The days are coming, says the LORD when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and Judah” [33:14] ─ and the fulfillment of Jeremiah’s words in the Gospel of Luke ─ “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great power and glory” [21:27]. That’s the destination of human life and what the story of Jesus is all about. Luke will show us ways in which the story unfolded and continues to unfold, just as Matthew, Mark and John do from each one’s perspective.