The Two Parts of Advent 

Part 1: Up until Decem­ber 16
While most litur­gi­cal sea­sons have the gospel as their main focus, dur­ing the first weeks of Advent, the Church gives us dai­ly read­ings from the prophet Isa­iah.  With the eyes of faith, these fore­tell the com­ing of the Mes­si­ah. Rather than a con­tin­u­ous gospel nar­ra­tive famil­iar to us for most of the year, this part of Advent offers a wide vari­ety of gospel read­ings that sup­port the first read­ing of the day.

After almost two weeks of Isa­iah read­ings, we hear the fore­telling of a Mes­si­ah from oth­er prophets from the Hebrew scrip­tures - in Sir­ach, Num­bers, Zepha­ni­ah and return­ing to Isa­iah. With each pass­ing week, the prophets speak more clear­ly of the com­ing of a Savior.

So, in read­ing the first read­ing, for the first part of Advent, we lis­ten to the antic­i­pa­tion, expec­ta­tion, hope and promise.  In lis­ten­ing to the sec­ond read­ing, we lis­ten for the ful­fill­ment or con­nec­tion with the gospel.

Part 2: Decem­ber 17 - 24

In these last eight days before Christ­mas, the rela­tion­ship between the read­ings changes.  Now the gospel brings us to our cel­e­bra­tion of Christ­mas.  The gospels are tak­en from the infan­cy nar­ra­tives of Matthew and Luke.

Each of these days, the first read­ing is tak­en from the Hebrew scrip­tures, and cho­sen to match the gospel.  In many cas­es we can imag­ine Matthew or Luke hav­ing the first read­ing open on their desks while they wrote the gospel.

So, we can read the gospel first and then read the first read­ing.  The sense of antic­i­pa­tion and ful­fill­ment builds as we read the sto­ry of the prepa­ra­tion for Jesus’ first com­ing into this world for us.