Behind the Scenes

As previously mentioned, two of the ongoing themes throughout
Advent are the need for vigilance and the epic battle between the light and the darkness. Night is associated with darkness (for obvious reasons). The Romans structured night into four watches of three hours apiece. St. Mark references all four different watches in his account of Jesus’s Passion, making use of common time telling standards his Roman audience would have found familiar.

This excerpt from One Sunday at a Time: Preparing Your Heart for Weekly Mass (Cycle B) is reprinted with permission of Ave Maria Press.