Advent Liturgy Emphasizes Jubilee Year Message of Hope

St. Paul writes in Hebrews 11:1, "Faith is the realization of what is hoped for, and evidence of things not seen." 

During Advent in this Jubilee Year of Hope, the Church's liturgy and teachings move the faithful to wait with such confident hope for the first and second comings of Christ. 

"The virtue of hope runs through the entire liturgical year in a rather obvious way since our worship is centrally focused on the Paschal mystery of Jesus," said Father Tom Ranzino, director of the Office of Worship for the Diocese of Baton Rouge. "That is the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ."

The focus of Advent is not necessarily upon Christ's passion, death, and resurrection, stated Father Ranzino.

"However, we can't help but think about the one who is coming to us as a baby in Bethlehem, and the one who is coming to us at the end of time, the second coming," said Father Ranzino. "That is the real cause of our hope."

The Advent season looks forward to things we can't see, but we believe them in two ways.

Father Ranzino said, "From the first Sunday of Advent to the 17th of December, we're looking to the Lord, who is going to come to us in glory. Our focus is on the Redeemer, the one who will take care of all creation for the sake of his Father, our Father."

After Dec. 17, the focus of the church's prayers and lectionary readings shift.

"We become more focused on the one who comes in Bethlehem who is the Messiah, whose mission is to fulfill the hope and longing of all who believe in the death and resurrection of Christ," stated Father Ranzino. "Our hope is that death is not our final end, and as one of our great biblical scholars, Father Raymond Brown, once said, 'The Messiah who comes at Christmas is the whole Christ, not just the infant, Jesus, but the whole Christ who will go to the cross and who will rise from the dead.'"

The Advent season allows us to hope that in a world that is chaotic and at times intrusive, uncaring, aggressive, and very selfish, there is another way, Father Ranzino pointed out.

"The readings and prayers of Advent remind us that our hope has not been forgotten, that God is faithful, and that the one who comes is more powerful than what creates fear in our lives, hopelessness for our future."

Father Ranzino is struck by the fact that some people are numbed by their burdens. 

"One of the messages of Advent is that what we think brings security, our hope, is often unreliable and false and will not satisfy our deepest longings," he said.

"The Church looks at the season of Advent as a season of renewal and hope. It's not Lent, it's not a season of penance. A word I like to use is 'renovation' where we can examine our lives and our place before the Lord and say, 'Okay, what needs shoring up?' 'What needs another look at so that our spiritual lives can truly draw us closer to the Lord, who is our brother as well as our savior?'"

The work of the Church is to give people ways to be more in tune with God's Spirit at work in their lives. The O antiphons, which begin on Dec. 17, are short verses that Father Ranzino said exemplify this. 

One of the "genius points of the Catholic faith life" is that the faithful use created things to remind them of what they can't see, according to Father Ranzino.

"And one of those is the Advent wreath," he said. "We used created things liked candles, greenery, and a circle to say something about how time works, how light is representative of being shown the way and how light also represents the Christ who is coming into the world. And how we build up anticipation and hope again for that world made new. 

"I love the way the Church marks the passage of time by saying, 'Look he's already in your midst' and also, 'Look he's coming soon' both at the same time."

As the end of the Year of Hope approaches on Jan. 6, 2026, the feast of the Epiphany, Father Ranzino emphasizes that hope itself never ends.

"It's bigger than us. Our hope in God never ends, just like Advent keeps coming around every year to remind us that the work of God is not finished ...  the Lord is in our midst, but he's still coming. And the hope that we say this year has focused on has simply been a red stop sign along the way of life for us to take a breath and say, 'You know ... there is hope,'" he said.