Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone: Spend This Advent With Mary

By Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, EWTN News, November 28, 2023

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone is the archbishop of San Francisco and the founder and chairman of the board of the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship.

COMMENTARY: Don’t miss the world premiere of two Advent carols.

This year, for Advent, we at the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship are launching something new: “A Very Marian Advent Prayer Service.” Every year, many of us (including me) struggle to keep Advent in its proper liturgical sense: a season of preparation for the coming of our Savior marked by fasting and other penitential acts, in addition to special prayers, rituals and symbols.

It’s not just the distractions of the secular and commercial; the sheer joy at the anticipation of Christmas keeps bursting through. So this year, why not spend Advent waiting with Mary for the coming of the Baby Jesus? Mothers know full well the challenges of the last month of pregnancy: the anticipatory joy amid what is often physical suffering or fears of the suffering that childbirth brings.  …..