The First Sunday of Advent: A Season of Preparation

Today, November 30th, 2025, marks the First Sunday of Advent.

In the Catholic tradition, this isn't just a countdown to Christmas; it is the beginning of the new liturgical year. It is a season characterized not by the frantic shopping of the secular world, but by a quiet, deliberate waiting.

As a developer and business owner, "waiting" is often something I try to optimize away. We build faster pipelines, faster loading screens, and instant feedback loops. But Advent reminds me that some things cannot be rushed.

The theme of this first Sunday is Hope (represented by the first purple candle, the "Prophecy Candle"). It asks us to look forward with anticipation, preparing our hearts and minds for the coming of Christ.

The Parallels of Building

There is a parallel here to the work we do in technology. Just as we don't launch a product without weeks of architecture, coding, and testing, we cannot arrive at the joy of Christmas without the preparation of Advent.

• Debugging vs. Conscience: We debug our code to remove errors; Advent asks us to examine our conscience.
• Refactoring vs. Simplicity: We refactor our systems to run more efficiently; Advent asks us to simplify our lives to focus on what matters.

For me, this Sunday is a reset button. It’s a time to step back from the screens, the deployments, and the metrics, and to ground myself in the hope that anchors everything else.

Happy Advent.