Fr. Brian Maher, OMI, asks, “Do we wonder why this reading, which comes at the end of Luke’s Gospel, has been chosen to lead us into Advent and the start of another Church year?” If we see it as promising the coming of a God who will judge and punish us, it would be a very ill-chosen reading. If we see it as promising the coming of a God of destruction, a distant, impersonal God to be feared and avoided, if possible, then using it to begin a ‘new’ year would be encouraging people to leave the Church rather than to “return with all your heart.” But if we read this Gospel as the first Christian communities read it, then we truly can “…Stand erect and raise your heads” because the tiny child who will be born into our world in just four weeks is indeed ‘our God,’ coming in love, to reveal to us a God of love and to say to us, “I do not call you servants but friends…”; I wash your feet because you are ‘created in my image and likeness,’ and underneath the dirt and grime of everyday living there is a person of unique dignity; my son, my daughter, my friend and an heir to God’s Kingdom. What a wonderful Gospel with which to begin Advent.