Today's Mass is called the Sunday Next Before Advent. it is a week given to prepare for this blessed liturgical season. We turn a corner from the long season of Trinitytide where we have reflected on how we should live from the finished work of Jesus Christ. Advent is the Season where we begin again preparing both for His coming and His Second Coming. St. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 11 that "If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged." Today we understand this to mean if we would come into agreement with God each day on how He sees us, we would be in agreement over our sin and our fallenness. If we live in that way now, we encounter the Divine mercy of God on a daily basis and find great healing and transformation in our lives. We see that if let God judge us and give us His mercy now, we shall surely have it on the last day.