29 November 2026 · Latin Rite
Open in the Daily Word appAlso: Syro-Malankara Rite · Syro-Malabar Rite · മലയാളം
“And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” Mark 13:37
Advent opens with a cry from the depths. Isaiah's people, back from exile but disappointed, pray: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” They confess their sin honestly, “we have all become like one who is unclean”, and yet they hold on to one certainty: “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter.” Advent begins not with our achievements but with our longing.
God answered that prayer beyond imagining. He did tear open the heavens: at the Baptism of Jesus Mark uses that very word, the heavens “torn apart” (Mark 1:10). The Church's Advent has a double face: it prepares us to celebrate Christ's first coming at Christmas, and it directs our minds to his second coming at the end of time (Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year 39).
Mark's Gospel, which we will read through this year, gives Jesus' word for the waiting: “Keep awake.” A man goes on a journey and gives each servant his work, and the doorkeeper must stay awake, because the master may come “in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn”. Those four watches are the hours of the Passion night: the Supper in the evening, Gethsemane at midnight, Peter's denial at cockcrow, Jesus before Pilate at dawn. The disciples slept; we are invited to watch.
Paul encourages the Corinthians: you are “not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ… God is faithful.” Advent waiting is not anxious; it is the waiting of people who have already received much and know that the One who is coming is faithful.
Theme: “Keep awake.”
Advent begins with longing, asks us to be reshaped by the Potter, and calls us to watch for Christ.
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence.” Isaiah 64:1
“The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!” Revelation 22:20
Apply: Pray “Come, Lord Jesus” at each Advent candle.
“Yet, O LORD, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter.” Isaiah 64:8
“Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.” Mark 13:33
Apply: Name one habit you want God to reshape.
“For there is still a vision for the appointed time; it speaks of the end, and does not lie. If it seems to tarry, wait for it; it will surely come, it will not delay.” Habakkuk 2:3
“Therefore, keep awake—for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn, or else he may find you asleep when he comes suddenly. And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” Mark 13:35–37
Apply: Fix a daily time of prayer for Advent.
Advent is longing, reshaping and watching.
The One who comes is faithful.
Take-home resolution: Make your Advent Confession this week or next.
Dear brothers and sisters, today we begin a new Church year. We light the first candle on the Advent wreath. A small flame in the dark, but it says: someone is coming.
The first reading is a prayer from people who were tired and disappointed. They had come back from exile, but life was hard and they felt far from God. And they cried out: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” Do we ever pray like that? For our families, for our nation, for the world?
They were honest about their sins. But they held on to one truth: “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are the potter.” That is Advent: we bring our broken clay to the Potter and ask him to shape us again.
And God answered. He did tear open the heavens. He came down at Bethlehem, as a child. And he will come again in glory. Advent prepares us for both comings.
In the Gospel Jesus gives one word, repeated: “Keep awake.” He mentions evening, midnight, cockcrow and dawn. Those were the hours of his own Passion night, when the disciples kept falling asleep. Jesus asks us to stay awake with him: through prayer, through honesty, through charity.
So let us use these four weeks well. Set up the Advent wreath at home and pray together each evening. Make a good Confession early. Choose one habit you want God to reshape. Then Christmas will not be just a holiday, but a meeting with the One who comes.
Children, what is this circle of green with candles? It's an Advent wreath!
Each Sunday we light one more candle. When all four are lit, it will be almost Christmas!
Advent means “coming”. Jesus is coming! We get ready by praying and being kind.
At home, light a candle every evening and say: “Come, Lord Jesus!”
Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that, gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Advent opens with a cry and a command. The cry comes from Isaiah: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!” It is the prayer of a people who know they have wandered and cannot save themselves, yet still dare to call God “our Father” and “our Redeemer”. The psalm repeats it: “Lord, make us turn to you; let us see your face and we shall be saved.” Paul answers that God has come, and will come: the Corinthians are rich in every gift as they “wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ”. The command comes from Jesus in Mark: “Keep awake.”
The readings hold together the two comings of Christ. Isaiah's prayer was answered at Bethlehem and at the Jordan, where Mark says the heavens were “torn apart” (Mark 1:10). And the Church still prays it, waiting for his return in glory. The key words are longing, waiting and watching.
Setting.
Isaiah 63:7–64:12 is a long community lament, probably from the years after the return from exile in Babylon (after 538 BC). The Temple lies in ruins (63:18; 64:11), the people feel abandoned, and they remember the great deeds of the Exodus. The prayer is honest: it confesses sin, and it also asks God why he has let them stray.
A note on the numbering. The Lectionary uses the Hebrew verse numbers. In the NRSV and the Malayalam POC, which number this passage as English Bibles do, today's reading is Isaiah 63:16b–17; 64:1, 3b–8. The quotations below follow the NRSV numbering.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“you, O Lord, are our father; our Redeemer from of old is your name.” (63:16)
“Why, O Lord, do you make us stray from your ways and harden our heart, so that we do not fear you? Turn back for the sake of your servants,” (63:17)
The Hebrew idiom often attributes to God what he permits; the Malayalam POC renders it “allow us to stray”. The cry is not an accusation but a desperate trust: only God can turn them back.
“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence” (64:1)
Mark answers this prayer at Jesus' baptism: Jesus “saw the heavens torn apart” (Mark 1:10), using a strong Greek verb for tearing. At the death of Jesus the Temple curtain too is torn (Mark 15:38).
“From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him.” (64:4)
St Paul echoes this verse in 1 Corinthians 2:9: “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard … what God has prepared for those who love him.”
“We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf,” (64:6)
Verse 5b is very difficult in Hebrew, and translations differ widely; the POC, for example, reads “Will we be saved?” But the sense of the whole is clear: the people stand before God with empty hands.
“Yet, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” (64:8)
The lament ends not in despair but in “Yet”. Our hope is not in our record but in who God is.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that in Israel God is called Father because he is Creator and above all because of the covenant (CCC 238). It also explains why Advent reads such prophecies: when the Church celebrates Advent each year, she makes present the ancient expectation of the Messiah, so that by sharing in the long preparation for the Saviour's first coming the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming (CCC 524).
The Advent chant “Rorate caeli” sets the cry of the prophets to music, and the hymn “O come, O come, Emmanuel” paraphrases the medieval O antiphons sung at Vespers from 17 December. Both carry the longing of Isaiah 64.
Setting.
These are the opening verses of First Corinthians, written by Paul from Ephesus around AD 54. The Corinthian Church was gifted, lively and troubled: divided into factions, proud of its spiritual gifts, confused about the resurrection. Yet Paul begins not with rebuke but with thanksgiving. Before he corrects them, he reminds them of what God has given and what God will do.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1:7)
Christian life is lived between two comings. The gifts are given for the time of waiting.
“He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1:8)
The strength to persevere is not our own achievement but Christ's work in us.
“God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.” (1:9)
The whole letter rests on this sentence. The Corinthians were unfaithful in many ways, but God is faithful.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism teaches that charisms are graces of the Holy Spirit oriented to the common good of the Church (CCC 799–800, 2003). This Sunday the Church hears Paul's thanksgiving as her own: she has been given everything she needs, the Word, the sacraments and the Spirit, while she waits for her Lord.
Setting.
Mark 13 is the longest discourse of Jesus in Mark, spoken on the Mount of Olives opposite the Temple (13:3). It speaks of the destruction of the Temple and of the end of the age. Jesus has just said that “about that day or hour no one knows” (13:32). Today's verses draw the conclusion: if the time is unknown, the only right response is to stay awake.
Structure.
Key words.
Verse by verse.
“Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.” (13:33)
A note on the text: many manuscripts add “and pray”, which the Latin Vulgate follows (“vigilate et orate”). The NRSV and the POC follow the manuscripts without it. Either way, prayer is the form watchfulness takes (14:38).
“It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his slaves in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.” (13:34)
The master is absent but has not abandoned his house. The time of his visible absence is the time of the Church.
“for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or at dawn,” (13:35)
These are the four Roman watches of the night. Mark's Passion follows the same night: the supper “when it was evening” (14:17), the disciples asleep in Gethsemane (14:37–41), Peter's denial at cockcrow (14:72), and Jesus handed over to Pilate “as soon as it was morning” (15:1). The disciples failed to keep awake that night.
“And what I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.” (13:37)
The discourse was spoken privately to four disciples (13:3), but its last word is for everyone.
How the Church reads it.
The Catechism describes the present time as a time of waiting and watching, citing this passage (CCC 672). St Bernard, in a sermon read in the Office of Readings during the first week of Advent, speaks of three comings of the Lord: the first in the flesh and in weakness, the last in glory and majesty, and a hidden coming in between, in which he comes to us in spirit and power (in substance). Advent trains us for all three.
Why does Advent begin with the end of the world, not with Christmas?
Because Advent has a twofold character. It prepares for Christmas, when we remember Christ's first coming, and it directs our minds to his second coming at the end of time (General Norms for the Liturgical Year 39). Until 16 December the second coming is in the foreground; from 17 to 24 December the readings prepare more directly for the Nativity.
Isaiah says “all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth”. Are good works worthless?
No. Isaiah speaks of a people's attempt to stand before God on their own record after turning away from him. The Church teaches that good works done in grace are truly pleasing to God, but that grace always comes first (CCC 2008, 2011). The point of the lament is that only God can save.
What does “tear open the heavens” have to do with Christmas?
Isaiah prays that God himself will come down. In Jesus that prayer is answered beyond all hope: God comes not with quaking mountains but as a child, and at the Jordan the heavens are torn open over him (Mark 1:10).
Today the Latin Church begins a new liturgical year and a new Lectionary cycle, Year B, in which most Sunday Gospels come from Mark. The colour is violet, the Gloria is omitted until Christmas (except on solemnities and feasts, such as St Andrew tomorrow), and the Church's music and decoration are more restrained, so that the joy of Christmas may be fuller. In many homes and churches the first candle of the Advent wreath is lit today.
Advent begins on the Sunday falling on or closest to 30 November, the feast of St Andrew, which this year is tomorrow. The Collect of the day asks that we may run forth to meet Christ with righteous deeds at his coming.