Advent calendars are popular, often containing chocolates or even luxury goods. But what are they and where did they originate? Here's how the faithful use them to prepare for Christmas.

Advent, which begins today, starts with the anticipation of Christ’s Second Coming, but then changes to focus on Jesus’ birth.

The Christian liturgical season of Advent - which begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and goes through Christmas Eve - has been viewed historically as a time of repentance and fasting, ...

Advent always starts four Sundays before Christmas. This year, Advent starts on Sunday, Dec. 1. What are the Sundays of Advent 2024? The Sundays of Advent 2024 are Dec. 1, Dec. 8, Dec. 15 and Dec. 22.

In the midst of this blog's focus on Advent, properly I might say, and the liturgical year in general, which is the focus of the Catholic Church's activities the year round, an interesting ...

Liturgical colors used by most denominations who incorporate them into worship: Green for most of the year -- from Pentecost in May (red) to Advent in December (purple), and also from Christmas ...

LONDON — The Pope’s chief liturgical official has called on all Catholic priests to start offering Mass ad orientem (facing east), beginning on the first Sunday of Advent.. Guinean-born ...

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 1, 2024 / 04:30 am. With the first Sunday of Advent, a new liturgical year begins in the Catholic Church, with the readings corresponding to Cycle C of odd-numbered years.

So, the modern liturgy divides Advent into a period, through December 16, during which the focus is Christ's Second Coming, and a period, from December 17 to the 24, focusing on His birth.

Whenever I attend Catholic mass during Advent, as I did last weekend, I’m always struck by how it is simply assumed—how it’s a liturgical . . . no, an ontological given—that Christmas is nowhere yet ...

The liturgical tradition has held even though today the congregation is divided between whites, who make up about half the membership, and Latinos, Asians, Filipinos and African Americans. Advent ...