The Beginning of Advent and the New Liturgical Year

As we are about to enter a new liturgical year of the Church, and the Advent season, I want to thank my extended family, Our Lady Queen of Heaven parish, for welcoming me as your deacon for now, just over three years. 

The fourth Sunday of November, this year, is the Feast of Christ the King, and the last Sunday of Liturgical Year B.  The following Sunday, November 28th, we begin the new Liturgical Year, which is Year C, and the first week of  Advent.  The Sunday Lectionary, follows a cycle of readings, A, B, and C, following the first three Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, of which the Gospel of that specific year has the main focus.  We leave the year of Mark, Year B, and now enter the year of Luke, Year C. The Gospel of John is read all three years of the cycle, during Christmas, Lent, and the Easter Season. The weekday Lectionary is made up of Years I and II: Year I for the odd years and Year II for the even years.  Since we will be entering the year 2022, which is an even year, we use the weekday Lectionary for Year II. The beauty of the cycle of years, in both the Sunday Lectionary and weekday Lectionary, is that we are given quite a lot of the Bible in a three-year period.

As we enter the year of the Gospel of Luke, we are reminded that Luke also wrote the Acts of the Apostles and was a follower of Saint Paul.  His main audience, at the time of this Gospel writing, were the Christian gentiles, the non-Jews. It is in those writings at the time, that we hear that Luke was a physician, and like Paul, he could have been, very well, a Jew himself.

Many enjoy the Gospel according to Luke, because of his skill as a writer, and the beauty of all of us getting more of his Gospel writing in the sequel that he writes, which, of course,  is the Acts of the Apostles. As we near entering the new liturgical year, Year C, we will hear in the Gospel according to Luke, the infancy narrative, the Christmas story, the birth of our Savior, our Redeemer—Jesus Christ.