Advent: A Period of Devout and Expectant Delight!

Advent: A Period of Devout and Expectant Delight!

 

As the figure of John the Baptist reminds us on the second and third Sundays of Advent, sometimes our faith challenges us to be counter-cultural – especially in a world that has a tendency to distance itself from God and the ways of the Lord knows are best for us. This season of Advent is one of those times because, while the world is already celebrating what it considers “the Christmas season” (more like the “shopping season”), the Church invites us to hold off on Christmas a little longer to celebrate another season first: The Advent of the Lord – a time to look forward to the coming of the Lord Jesus. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with attending an early Christmas party or singing along with the Christmas music already playing all around us (but not in the liturgy…yet). After all, Christmas is a theme each year where our faith and the secular world overlap, and it’s one of the easiest times to acknowledge publicly that we are grateful to have Jesus in our lives. However, if we completely give-in to our culture of instant-satisfaction and “pull out all the stops” on Christmas now, we are actually less likely to have a truly meaningful Christmas and more likely to be sick of it by the time the true Christmas season actually arrives! After all, the “twelve days of Christmas” begin on December 25!

 

So it is such a blessing that the Church, in her wisdom, gives us these four weeks of prayerful anticipation – a time of looking forward to the future, and what God has in store for us. Not only is it a time to prepare for our commemoration of what Jesus did in the past, but it’s also a time to prepare for what Jesus will do for us (as the word “advent” implies). As described among the Roman Missal (U.N.L.Y., n.39): 

 

Advent has a twofold character, for it is a time of preparation for the Solemnities of Christmas, in which the First Coming of the Son of God to humanity is remembered, and likewise a time when, by remembrance of this, minds and hearts are led to look forward to Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time. For those two reasons, Advent is a period of devout and expectant delight. 

 

This is why I push back on those who speak about Advent like a “little Lent”. While both seasons use shades of purple, the color of penitence, Advent is only penitent in a secondary way. Unlike Lent, which goes deeper and deeper into sorrow for our sins, which led to the Lord’s passion, Advent has a distinctive character of building-up hope, light, and joy – like the increasing lights on the Advent wreath and our decorations. It is in this brightening, hope-filled context, then, that the call of John the Baptist to “prepare the way of the Lord” includes preparing our hearts and our lives by a spiritual “house cleaning” (usually including sacramental Reconciliation) so we can be at peace with welcoming Jesus as our guest when he comes to us anew this Christmas! It is in this spirit that, in addition to our weekend times for Reconciliation, our PWC collaborative will offer an evening opportunity for Confessions in Advent Hope on Monday, December 16, 6 – 8 pm at St. Martha church.

 

One of my favorite reflections on Advent comes from the abbot St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who adds:

We know that there are three comings of the Lord. The third lies between the other two. It is invisible, while the other two are visible. …In his first coming our Lord came in our flesh and in our weakness; in this middle coming he comes in spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and majesty. Because this coming lies between the other two, it is like a road on which we travel from the first coming to the last. …listen to what our Lord himself says: If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him.

 

So, this Advent, let us be consoled by memories of Jesus coming as a child, be challenged, and inspired by the Lord’s future coming, and – as the Lord presently comes to us in word and sacrament – be motivated by his mercy and hope to make the most of this time “on the road” between the two!