Every Second Sunday of Advent, we are introduced to one of the most important persons associated with Advent, and he is St John the Baptist.

We are indeed blessed to have a season like Advent in which we spend time reflecting on the perennial hope of humanity for a saviour – for someone who will lead us along the right path to life and fulfilment.

As we head into the Advent season of preparation and reflection, Pope Francis’ recent trips to Thailand and Japan illustrate for us yet again, one of the key messages of his papacy – we must be a Church that goes out to the margins.

Both Japan and Thailand are countries with only a tiny percentage of Christians, but Pope Francis travelled all the way from Rome to encourage and support them, as well as to meet with the leaders and people of other faiths.

As we have moved into the second Sunday of Advent, we are invited to spend some time examining ourselves and preparing our hearts for the upcoming celebrations of our Saviour’s birth.

“Religious extremism is on the rise!”, “Massive earthquake in Indonesia!”, “Severe droughts in Australia!”, “Russia is on a warpath with Ukraine!”, whenever we hear these headlines, it brings chills down our spines, and with it we could be forgiven for thinking that the end of the world as we know it is coming.

I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for Advent – that beautiful time when the Church kicks off a whole new liturgical year with a period of reflection and preparation for the coming of the Christ child at Christmas.

It’s wonderfully counter-cultural to take these weeks of quiet, prayerful preparation when the rest of the world is going mad with parties and shopping and busyness.

Different cultures came together in music and song to celebrate the birth of Jesus at Multicultural Christmas Carols, hosted by the Divine Word Missionaries in Sydney and Brisbane.

The SVD Marsfield Community hosted its annual Christmas Carols Festival and St Mark’s Parish, Inala hosted an ecumenical, multicultural Carols evening in Brisbane.

It’s now the start of another liturgical year. This year is Year B, meaning that most of the gospel readings for Sundays will come from the Gospel according to Mark and also a good number of Sundays will be coming from the Gospel according to John.

As I write this message, we are about to head into Advent and a new Church year. It’s always a good to time to slow down, reflect, look back on the year that’s been and look ahead to what is to come.

In Advent, we look ahead to the incarnation of Our Lord Jesus Christ and to his second coming. We recount the great story of Salvation History and God’s relationship with humanity, which reached its fulfilment when God became human in the form of the Christ child.

One of the things that a religious missionary who is far away from home enjoys is phone conversations with family members. Recently I had a memorable conversation with my Dad. Each year at this time of the monsoon season, Dad works tirelessly in preparation for the paddy Harvest.

In my last conversation with him, I asked Dad, how the preparation is going for the Harvest. To my surprise he said, that this year the farm is not in its prime healthy condition, because of the incessant rain. The chilli fields are more often prone to infestation of pests. However, he expressed his eagerness in waiting for the paddy harvesting in the early weeks of December.