For today a child is born, Jesus Christ the Lord. On this day God sent his only son into the world, taking on a human form, just like you and I. In a stable in Bethlehem, Christ entered the world as a newborn baby: a child like you and I, dependent on his mother Mary and Joseph for all the necessities of life.

This Sunday is the Third Sunday of Advent. This Sunday is known as “Gaudete (“rejoice ye”) Sunday.” This day is a day to be reminded that, in the midst of a penitential season, we are to rejoice that Christ will come again. The prophet Isaiah (61:1-2a, 10-11) tells us...

  The Second Sunday of Advent presents us with the person of St. John the Baptist. Today’s Gospel reading from Mark 1:1-8 tells us that, “John the Baptist appeared in the desert proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People of the whole Judean countryside and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River as they acknowledged their sins. John was clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist. He fed on locusts and wild honey. And this is what he proclaimed: ‘One mightier than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop and loosen the thongs of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’”