Southern California Catholics are being invited to make use of a “digital Advent calendar” to help prepare spiritually during the liturgical season of Advent.
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ new Advent webpage, LACatholics.org/Advent2020, will be updated each day with prayers, music, videos and other resources for faithful to “celebrate the season of Advent safely at home and online during the pandemic,” according to a Nov. 29 news release.
In its announcement, the archdiocese said the campaign was about inviting Catholics to put aside more time for family prayer. To that end, it invited families to use the hashtag #ItStartsAtHome in social media posts sharing the ways in which they are living the liturgical season.
Resources like the digital advent calendar and livestreamed Masses in parishes around the archdiocese are part of the archdiocese’s efforts to reach out to LA Catholics spending more time at home since the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020.
Advent, said Archbishop José H. Gomez in his Mass homily on the first Sunday of Advent, “announces the faithfulness of God.”
“Advent is a reminder that [Jesus] has already come. He has already entered into the reality of our human existence and he is still with us," he said during the Mass, which was livestreamed from the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. “Advent reminds us that Jesus is always arriving. In the people he sends into our lives. In the challenges we face every day. In the burdens we carry. Even in our sufferings.”
