On the evening of 23rd November 2022 Fr Adrian Graffy gave a Faith Talk in the Catholic Church of Christ the Eternal High Priest, Gidea Park, on the subject of the ‘Advent Lectionary’. The intention was to illustrate how the lectionary was put together for the Advent season leading up to Christmas. Fr Adrian explained that the length of Advent varies from 22 to 28 days, depending on when 25th December falls in a given year. Having spoken about the different parts of the book of Isaiah, Fr Adrian then gave a survey of the first three Sundays of Advent, the weekdays up to 16th December, the fourth Sunday, and the days from 17th to 23rd December, which are a time of intense preparation. The importance of the gospel readings from Matthew chapter 1 and Luke chapter 1 was explained. Fr Adrian stressed that it was impossible to get a grasp of so much material, but invited the audience, both in-person and via live stream, to visit the relevant pages of www.whatgoodnews.org where all the readings are given with brief commentary. The best way is to follow the readings day by day. The evening concluded with a fascinating look at the ‘O’ antiphons, which mark the last days of Advent and feed our anticipation for the coming of the Lord.
The text of Fr Adrian’s talk and the ‘O’ Antiphons are both below.