Is Advent merely a ticking timer for us to celebrate Christmas? What is the actual purpose of this season of waiting? Ever wondered what the liturgical year cycle is about?
Read on for more insights......
The Meaning and Purpose of Advent
The season of Advent is one of particular importance. It is a sacred season. As the Holy Spirit says, it is the time of the Lord's favour, the day of salvation, peace and reconciliation. The patriarchs and prophets longed and prayed with all their hearts for this time. That just as the man Simeon at long last saw this time and his joy was boundless.
The Church has always kept this season in a special way. So, we too must continue to celebrate it fittingly, giving praise and thanks to the eternal Father for the mercy he has shown us in this mystery of the coming of his Only-begotten Son.
The Father sent His Son out of His immeasurable love for us sinners. He sent him to free us from the tyrannical power of the devil, to invite us to heaven and lead us into its innermost sanctuary. He was sent to show us truth itself, to teach us how we should live, to share with us the source of all goodness, to enrich us with the treasures of his grace. Finally, he was sent to make us sons of the Father and heirs to eternal life.
The Church calls this mystery to mind each year to stir us to renew constantly our memory of the great love God has shown us. This commemoration teaches us that our Saviour came not only for the benefit of the people of his time. His goodness is still there for us to share in. On our part, through faith and the sacraments we must lay hold on the grace he won for us and live by it in obedience to him.
The Church wants us to understand that there are three distinct accents to the liturgy of the Advent season, which are defined by the three comings of the Lord:
Yesterday, at Bethlehem, when the Son of God was born of the Virgin Mary;
Today, in our world, where He is ready to come to us again at any minute or hour, to make His home spiritually within us in all His grace;
Tomorrow, when He returns in glory.
Like a devoted mother, keenly concerned for our salvation, the Church uses the rites of this season, its hymns, songs and other promptings of the Holy Spirit to teach us a lesson. She shows us how to receive this great gift of God with thankfulness and how to be enriched by its possession. She teaches us that our hearts should be as prepared now for the coming of Christ our Lord as if he were still to come into the world.
In addition, we can find other meanings in Advent. In the structure of Christianity it can be taken as indicating the deepest level. Christianity is the religion of the coming of God, of his breaking through into human history and life - an aspect which makes it stand out from other religions.
Such is the rich meaning of Advent. From this beginning of the liturgical year, we celebrate the whole panorama of the mystery: from the beginning, when God created heaven and earth, until its fulfillment at the end of time, passing through the times of preparation-through the Scriptures-nearer and nearer to the approaching realization of "today in our world."
The Liturgical Year
The liturgical year sets forth "the whole mystery of Christ from the Incarnation and Nativity to the Ascension, to Pentecost and the expectation of the blessed hope of the coming of the Lord."
Typically, "the liturgical year" calls to mind only the Christian calendar of Sundays and feasts that, instead of beginning on January 1 and ending December 31, begins instead from the first Sunday of Advent to the Saturday at the end of the Thirty-Fourth week of Ordinary Time. This deviation from the common secular calendar does not create a real problem. Christmas is the only date one needs to know in order to determine the date of the first of the four Sundays of Advent. However, this first, superficial picture of a simple, annual schedule of Christian celebrations is not enough to fully appreciate the profound reality of the liturgical year and all it values. We must begin, therefore, with a certain understanding of time.
In pagan religions, historical time is sacred only insofar as particular events reproduce the primordial time of the Gods. In the Bible, there is no history that predates the creation by God of the universe and of humankind. History is sacred because in it is unfolded the plan of God that, after the sin of Adam and Eve, comes the sacred history of redemption.
This sacred history is marked by interventions of God:
- He reveals himself;
- He appeals to the responsibility of men and women that they might choose to enter freely into his plan and turn back to him when they have sinned;
- He guides events toward the fulfillment of his plan of redemption.
This history moves toward an end: the full realization of the desire of God for the salvation of each and every person by the coming of the Messiah, the Saviour.
The liturgical year demands that one enter into its mystical, sacramental perspective. This requires a "full, active, and conscious" participation which, in turn, depends on our progress, and that of the whole Church, towards the Day of the Lord and the full realization of the plan of salvation that God accomplishes in time.
The liturgical year develops, therefore, a spirituality of responsibility, of acting to bring about the reign of God, its peace, justice, and joy in a world that is never without meaning, into our own historical time. It opens the pathways of our creative imagination; enlightened and stimulated by the Word of God.
A Happy and Blessed Christmas in advance to all.
Written by Rev. Fr David Thexeira
Published by Jacob Soo
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