This year, the season of Advent is celebrated by the Roman Catholic Church from November 27-December 24. 

Catholics celebrate this season to prepare for the coming of the Lord Jesus spiritually each Christmas, while we remember His birth some 2000 years ago and await His coming again at the end of time "to judge the living and the dead." (Apostle's Creed)  The word Advent is from the Latin adventus for "coming".

The Advent season is filled with preparation and expectation. Everyone is getting ready for Christmas — shopping and decorating, baking and cleaning. Too often, however, we are so busy with the material preparations that we lose sight of the real reason for our activity: the Word made flesh coming to dwell among us. Christians are urged to preserve the spiritual focus of Christmas amidst the prevailing secular and consumer-driven society. 

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the season, let us strive to keep Advent a season of waiting and longing, of conversion and hope, meditating often on the incredible love and humility of our God in taking on flesh of the Virgin Mary. In our shopping and baking, let us remember to purchase and prepare something for the poor. When we clean our homes, let us distribute some of our possessions to those who lack many necessities. While we are decking the halls of our homes, let us not forget to prepare a peaceful place in our hearts wherein our Savior may come to dwell.  (Adapted from CatholicCulture.org)

  

Welcoming the Roman Missal Third Edition - Advent 2011  More Info>>

December 8
Immaculate Conception 
   (Holy Day of Obligation) More Info>>
   7:00am, 8:00am, 9:30am, 12noon
   (Extraordinary [Latin] Form),
   5:45pm, 7:00pm Youth Mass (Hall),
   7:30pm (Spanish)

December 10
Mass & Anointing of the Sick
   10am in the church

December 12
Feast Day: Our Lady of Guadalupe
  5am Mañanitas, 5:30am Rosary, 6am Mass, 7am
   Breakfast

December 24
Masses on Christmas Eve
   4:30pm   - Children’s Pageant & Mass (Hall)
   7:30pm   - Youth Mass (Church)
   10:30pm - Christmas Concert (Church)
   12:00am - Midnight Mass (Church)

December 25
Masses on Christmas Day
(Regular Sunday Mass Schedule)
   7:30am
   9:00am (Extraordinary [Latin] Form)
   10:30am
   12:00 Noon
   1:30pm (Spanish)
   5:30pm
   7:30pm

 

Parish Advent Penance Service:
   Dec. 21, 7:00pm in the church

There will be no confessions heard from Dec. 19 - Dec. 24, regular daily confession schedule will resume on Dec. 26.

Priests from around the diocese will be at St. Joseph's to hear your confessions.  The priests hope to see you at the St. Joseph’s Penance service on December 21st!

Modesto-area Advent Penance Services

• December 13th - Our Lady of Fatima
  
• December 14th - St. Stanislaus
  
• December 19th - St. Anthony in Hughson
  
• December 21st - St. Joseph's
• December 22nd - St. Jude in Ceres     
  

 

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Today, together with the Church, we are beginning the new liturgical year: a new journey of faith to experience together in Christian communities but, as always, also to be taken within world history so as to open it to God's mystery, to the salvation that comes from his love. The liturgical year begins with the Season of Advent. It is a marvellous period in which the expectation of Christ's return and the memory of his first Coming — when he emptied himself of his divine glory to take on our mortal flesh — reawakens in hearts.

"Watch!" This is Jesus' call in today's Gospel. He does not only address it to his disciples but to everyone: "Watch!" (Mk 13:37). It is a salutary reminder to us that life does not only have an earthly dimension but reaches towards a "beyond", like a plantlet that sprouts from the ground and opens towards the sky. A thinking plantlet, man, endowed with freedom and responsibility, which is why each one of us will be called to account for how he/she has lived, how each one has used the talents with which each is endowed: whether one has kept them to oneself or has made them productive for the good of one's brethren too.

Read the full message.

Advent – a word meaning "coming" – indicates that something or someone is arriving soon. We become expectant and interiorly alert. The Advent of Christmas is a beautiful season, a time of renewal. The new Church year begins with the first Sunday of Advent, and every time it comes around, my heart thrills anew. Advent lasts about four weeks and is the Church's preparatory time for Christmas, for the coming of Our Lord as a Child on earth, for his incarnation in time. It is the time of expectation. True, Christ has already come upon earth. He has been crucified, and has risen. He is with us now, in his Church. And yet, as the season for commemorating his birth approaches, something stirs in us, something deep and profound, as if we are expecting a great miracle.

As Christmas approaches, everyone feels a certain something that cannot be put into words, for there are no words that fit. We begin to realize that we are expecting Someone and we become aware of an interior "burning" in our heart. If we allow the expectation that is within us to come forth, we will be filled with joy.

Advent is meant to be a time of faith. Do you have faith that Our Lady is coming? Do you hear the donkey's bells as she nears Bethlehem? Do you have faith in her pregnancy? Do you have faith that the Child who will come from her womb is God?
Here is another mystery wrapped up in Advent: the call to give of oneself as Our Lady did. Oh, we're willing to give of ourselves for a little while, doing good works or helping our neighbor, but not at a very big cost to ourselves. However, that doesn't work before the Child in the manger, before the utter gift of Jesus Christ to us, as a Child. This giving of self is like a restlessness within the heart, like waves beating on the shore. The person who says, "I cannot rest unless I really surrender myself to God" eventually does just that. What we have to do is surrender to him. Do you act towards your neighbor as if he or she were Christ? Christ said, "Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, you do to Me" (Matthew 25:40). Let every day be the day of beginning again, of loving Christ a little more, of hungering for him a little more, of turning our face to him. To do this, all we need to do is to look at the person next to us. We must never forget that we shall be judged on love alone.

Even while Christ is yet coming, he is already with us in many ways, for incredible Love that he is, he could not separate himself from us. He is with us in the tabernacle. He walks among us in all his priests. Through them, he multiplies himself in the Hosts so that they can feed us with the Bread of Life: himself. If we remember that a woman held in her arms a Child, and that that Child was God, then we will be givers of peace.

Advent is especially a time for forgiveness because God brings his forgiveness to us in the shape of his Son. Let this Christmas be for us a turning point. Let us kill selfishness. Let us become childlike enough to kneel at the crib. "For unless you become as a little child, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven."

Copyright: Madonna House Publications – With Permission under a Creative Commons License. Catherine Doherty (August 15, 1896 – December 14, 1985), born in Russia, was foundress of Madonna House and a prolific writer and teacher. Her passionate zeal impelled her to pass on her faith in God, and she is now being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church. Visit www.CatherineDoherty.org for more information