What is Advent?

Beginning the Church’s liturgical year, Advent (from the Latin ad-venire, meaning “to come to”) is the season encompassing the four Sundays (and weekdays) leading up to the celebration of Christmas.

Advent is a season of devout and joyful expectation. The first part of Advent looks forward to the parousia, the Lord’s glorious return at the end of time and reflects on his presence among us today. The second part – from December 17th to 24th  – is a direct preparation for Christmas the yearly commemoration of Jesus’ coming among us in human flesh.

Here’s the calendar for Advent penitential services and Christmas Mass times at parishes thoughout the Archdiocese of Edmonton:

  • Advent Penitential Services are now completed.

  • Christmas Mass Times

  • Event Calendar

Resources:

CCCB Journey through Advent – Video Series to Introduce and Reflect on the Season

Designed to help the faithful prepare for the memorial of the birth of Our Lord celebrated at Christmas, these videos provide valuable resources and opportunities for faith formation: https://www.cccb.ca/evangelization-catechesis-catholic-education/video-resources/journey-through-advent/

The videos will be uploaded one at a time on a weekly basis throughout Advent and will be available on the CCCB website each Monday in advance of the upcoming Sunday Eucharistic Celebration. There are several ways to stay informed of these weekly updates:

  • Bookmark the home page of the CCCB website cccb.ca
  • Subscribe to the CCCB’s e-mail news service cccb.ca/news/subscribe
  • Subscribe to the CCCB’s YouTube channel CCCB_CECC – YouTube
  • Follow the CCCB on Twitter/X: twitter.com/CCCB_CECC
  • Subscribe to the newsletter of the CCCB Office for Evangelization and Catechesis. ‘Encounter’, by visiting cccb.ca/oec/encounter

Has your parish signed up for Flocknote? They have an entire library of pre-made Advent resources for your parish!

Flocknote is a communications platform for parishes that makes it easy to send out email and text campaigns.

They have a library of pre-designed Advent resources and teaching materials that you can customize for your parish and send out to your whole parish community, with just a click of a button.

See the Advent resources in the Library area of your parish Flocknote admin panel: