Advent 2024

25th Nov 2024

Annual Advent Wreath Blessing Liturgy 2024

The season of Advent begins in our community, as it always does, with a blessing of Advent Wreaths in a simple service led by the young people of Y4 on Friday 29^th November 2024 starting at 2.00pm in the school hall. We invite our Y4 parents/carers to join us for this special event that start us all on our Advent journeys.

Advent Class Reflections

As part of our Advent journey to the great feast of Christmas, our Chaplains will help to organise simple Advent class reflections just after 3.00pm from Monday 2^nd December 2024 to Friday 13^th December 2024. As places are limited and to ensure that everyone has a chance to join at least one reflection, we invite parents and carers to book one in the classes where their children are pupils. Those wishing to attend more than one reflection are asked to call on the day to check availability.

Reflections are on the following days:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Y1, Y5 and Y6	FS2, Y3, Y4, Y5 and Y6	FS2, Y1, Y2, Y5 and Y6	FS2, Y1, Y2, Y3 and Y4	Y2, Y3 and Y4

Please note that the only days when there will be no reflections when we visit to the Lyceum Theatre for this year’s pantomime.

Advent and Lent, are seasons of penitence when we take time to reflect on our lives and the choices we are making. We think about whether these choices bring us closer to our father or take us away from God.

On the Advent wreath, the three purple candles mark our preparations whilst awaiting the arrival of Christ at Christmas. Unlike Lent, Advent is a happier season.

Lighting the candles on the Advent Wreath

'Hope' is the focus in the first week of Advent, and the first purple candle is lit. In week 2 the focus is 'love' and the second purple candle is lit, along with the first. The Third Sunday of Advent is called Gaudete Sunday which is Latin for ‘rejoice’ and the pink (or 'rose') candle is lit, along with the first two purple candles, as the focus is on virtue of 'joy'. Priests also wear rose coloured vestments at Mass on the third Sunday of Advent. When describing the difference between happiness and joy, Pope Francis said:

“To be happy is good, yet joy is something more.
It’s another thing; something which does not depend on
external motivations, or on passing issues. It is more profound.
It is a gift.”

In the fourth and final week of Advent, the focus is 'peace' and the third purple candle is lit along with the previous three candles. On Christmas day, the white or 'Christmas' candle is lit, and is lit every day throughout the season of Christmas (or Christmastide).

If joy is a gift from the Lord, then the Lord Himself is our first and greatest gift, and the only one that will never tarnish, break or fade. Gaudete Sunday reminds us that the gift has not yet arrived, but is close at hand.