Every year on the second Sunday of Advent, the liturgy offers us the preaching of John the Baptist. He prepared the people of Israel for the coming of the Messiah. So, also today, he teaches us to welcome the advent of the Lord. Today, as then, the most difficult step to take is to understand the need to get out from where we are settled in, leave the false religious and theological security that we have constructed, and welcome the newness of God’s word.
In a spirit of joy and expectation, the Asian Missionary Congress, entitled Great Pilgrimage of Hope 2025, began on November 27 – initiating a Synodal Journey that brings together cardinals, bishops, clergy, religious and lay leaders from all over Asia – and lasted until the 30th.
What is Advent?
The season of Advent is a time of expectation, when we prepare our home and our hearts to celebrate the birth of Jesus on Christmas Day. The word Advent is derived from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming”…..
The language of the Gospel, especially its apocalyptic tones, often strikes a dissonant chord within our modern psyche. We either spiral into fearful speculation about a punishing God and a catastrophic end, or we flatten its profound mystery into a mere moralism about the suddenness of physical death. Both interpretations are a flight from the true, transformative power of the Word, born from a misreading of its sacred genre. Let us remember the fundamental key: the Gospel is, by its very nature, Good News. Any interpretation that breeds anxiety instead of hope, fear instead of conversion, or turmoil instead of peace within the soul is a distortion, moving us away from the heart of God, which is love and salvation.
It´s one of the world’s most renowned choral ensembles and it performed in Macau late last month. The Choeur Grégorien de Paris performed, who performed in the 100th Anniversary Concert of the University of Fu-Hen, has included the territory on its Asian Tour. The group sang at Saint Lawrence’s Church and at the Saint Joseph’s Seminary and Church. Author of several books about Gregorian chant, Pierre Loiret is also one of the oldest members of the Parisian ensemble. A former member of the French Navy with a PhD in Economy and Finance, Mr. Loiret told “O Clarim” that Gregorian Chant is not a thing of the past: in Europe there’s a revival being fueled by the younger generations.
This November has been particularly harsh for Catholic and Muslim communities in Nigeria. In the early morning hours of November 17th, “shortly before morning prayers,” an unknown number of girls were kidnapped by armed men who attacked a girls’ school in the northwest of that African country. The gang members attacked the Maga Government Girls’ Comprehensive Secondary School in the Danko/Wasagu district, Kebbi state. After killing the school’s vice-principal, Malam Hassan Yakubu Makuku – who tried in vain to protect the students – and wounding a security guard, the attackers fled to the neighboring state of Zamfara, taking an undetermined number of girls with them. The area where the kidnapping occurred is part of the Emirate of Zuru and is predominantly Muslim.
What powerful words these were. As Jesus hung dying on the Cross for the salvation of the world, He hung between two thieves. These thieves represent all of us. One of them wanted Jesus to save His earthly life by coming down from the Cross and saving him at the same time.
A Vision in a Time of Crisis
Isaiah chapter 6 marks a decisive moment in the prophet’s life and in Israel’s history. The vision occurs amid national upheaval: the death of King Uzziah, the Syro-Ephraimite war in 734 B.C., the fall of Samaria in 722, and the Assyrian siege of Jerusalem under Sennacherib in 701. In this desolate context, “the Lord of hosts” reveals Himself to Isaiah in overwhelming glory—“the hem of His robe filled the temple” (v.1).
As human beings, as citizens of a nation and of the world, as Christians, our humanity and our faith commit us to build peace: to have peace in our personal life and to promote social peace in our troubled world. We all desire peace, St. Augustine says, and therefore, St. Thomas adds, “we desire to obtain what we desire”: peace through continuing peacemaking by peaceful means.
“The Way of the Gospel” is the name of the new pilgrimage route to be established in southern Japan, precisely in the places where the first missionaries worked and where the extraordinary experience of the “hidden Christians” developed.