{"id":17205,"date":"2022-12-02T22:00:52","date_gmt":"2022-12-02T22:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/?p=17205"},"modified":"2022-12-03T16:38:48","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T16:38:48","slug":"parish-newsletter-2nd-sunday-of-advent-4th-december-2022","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/parish-newsletter-2nd-sunday-of-advent-4th-december-2022\/","title":{"rendered":"Parish Newsletter: 2nd Sunday of Advent 4th December 2022"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-17206 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/2nd-Sunday-of-Advent-Year-A-300x267.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"267\" srcset=\"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/2nd-Sunday-of-Advent-Year-A-300x267.jpg 300w, https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/2nd-Sunday-of-Advent-Year-A.jpg 470w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/>2nd Sunday of Advent Year A<\/span><\/h1>\n<p>Throughout the first three weeks of Advent, our focus is very clearly on the End of Time, and the Second Coming of the Lord &#8211; not on the run-up to Christmas (that only comes in the last week). If we view Advent as a Season preparing for Christmas these readings will make little sense &#8211; and neither will the figure of John the Baptist who appears today: if it was about the preparation for Christmas, then John the Baptist, preaching after Jesus was born, becomes a confusing figure: his role is to preach to us, as he did of old, and to prepare us for the (second) coming of the Lord. Everything gets more specific today: what is being preached is not an event, but a person: Isaiah promises him, John welcomes him, Paul invites us to imitate him. We have here a thumbnail portrait of the Messiah useful to refer to when we get to Christmas and he is revealed as a child in a manger!<\/p>\n<p>To view and download a copy of the Weekly Newsletter click <a href=\"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/2022.12.04-2A-CTK.pdf\">HERE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>To view and download a copy of the Prayers of the Faithful click <a href=\"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/221204 Advent2 SMB.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HERE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>To View the Pastoral Letter from Bishop for the 1st Sunday of Advent click <a href=\"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Pastoral Letter 24 First Sunday of Advent 2022.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HERE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>To make a donation click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mygivinghub.com\/detailed\/donate?charity_id=1086324&amp;type=2&amp;reference=Y18&amp;amount=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">HERE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2nd Sunday of Advent Year A Throughout the first three weeks of Advent, our focus is very clearly on the End of Time, and the Second Coming of the Lord&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"excerpt-read-more btn btn-primary\" href=\"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/parish-newsletter-2nd-sunday-of-advent-4th-december-2022\/\" title=\"ReadParish Newsletter: 2nd Sunday of Advent 4th December 2022\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":17206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17205"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17205"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17218,"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17205\/revisions\/17218"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/11host.me\/stmary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}