Miguel Augusto
Advent, which begins this Sunday, is a time of preparation for Christmas – four weeks – and opens a new Liturgical Year (Year C). Advent closes on the afternoon of December 24th, when the Christmas Season begins. This “new year” does not coincide with the calendar year, which starts on January 1st and ends on December 31st. The new Liturgical Year, which opens in Advent, passes through Christmas and Epiphany (the beginning of Ordinary Time), continues into Lent, Holy Week and Easter; it crosses the Ascension of the Lord and Pentecost, Feast of the Holy Trinity (return of Ordinary Time) and ends with the Feast of Christ the King, celebrated last Sunday. The spirit of Advent is marked by a brief journey that leads us to meet the Saviour, the child God who made himself equal to us in everything, except in sin.
In our reflection on Advent, we can draw from the wisdom of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. We recall a reflection of his during a homily at the Vatican Basilica, on November 28, 2009.
The Holy Father began by referring to the daily liturgy saying, “In the biblical Reading we have just heard, taken from the First Letter to the Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul invites us to prepare for ‘the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’ [5:23], with God’s grace keeping ourselves blameless. The exact word Paul uses is ‘coming,’ in Latin adventus, from which the term ‘Advent’ derives.”
Reflecting on the meaning of this word (Advent), Benedict XVI tells us that it can be rendered with “presence,” “arrival” or “coming.” In the language of the ancient world it was a technical term used to indicate the arrival of an official or the visit of the king or emperor to a province. However, the Pope highlighted, it could also mean the coming of the divinity that emerges from concealment to manifest himself forcefully or that was celebrated as being present in worship.
“Christians used the word ‘advent’ to express their relationship with Jesus Christ: Jesus is the King who entered this poor ‘province’ called ‘earth’ to pay everyone a visit; he makes all those who believe in him participate in his Coming, all who believe in his presence in the liturgical assembly,” underlined the Pontiff.
Therefore, said Benedict XVI, the meaning of the expression “advent” includes that of visitatio, which simply and specifically means “visit”; in this case it is a question of a visit from God: he enters my life and wishes to speak to me. The Pope said that, in our daily lives, we all live the experience of having little time for the Lord.
For the Pontiff, Advent invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence. It is an invitation to understand that the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us, signs of the attention he has for each one of us. “How often does God give us a glimpse of his love! To keep, as it were, an ‘interior journal’ of this love would be a beautiful and salutary task for our life! Advent invites and stimulates us to contemplate the Lord present. Should not the certainty of his presence help us see the world with different eyes? Should it not help us to consider the whole of our life as a ‘visit’, as a way in which he can come to us and become close to us in every situation?”
For Benedict XVI, another fundamental element of Advent is expectation, an expectation which is at the same time hope. Advent, continues the Pope, impels us to understand the meaning of time and of history as a kairós, as a favourable opportunity for our salvation. The Pontiff tells us that Jesus illustrated this mysterious reality in many parables: in the story of the servants sent to await the return of their master; in the parable of the virgins who await the bridegroom; and in those of the sower and of the harvest. The Holy Father reflects that man is constantly waiting. He emphasizes that hope marks humanity’s journey but for Christians it is enlivened by a certainty:
“The Lord is present in the passage of our lives, he accompanies us and will one day also dry our tears. One day, not far off, everything will find its fulfilment in the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of justice and peace.”
In the celebration of Vespers at the beginning of the Advent Season, after a year – 27 November 2010 – in the same Vatican Basilica, Benedict XVI in his homily recalled what we will celebrate – “This great and fascinating mystery of the God-with-us, indeed, of the God who becomes one of us, is what we shall celebrate in the coming weeks journeying towards holy Christmas.”
During the time of Advent, the Holy Father said that we shall feel the Church which takes us by the hand and – in the image of Mary Most Holy, expresses her motherhood, enabling us to experience the joyful expectation of the coming of the Lord, who embraces us all in his love that saves and consoles.
The Pontiff stressed that the Liturgy does not cease to encourage and support us, putting on our lips, in the days of Advent, the cry with which the whole of Sacred Scripture ends, on the last page of the Revelation to St John: “Come, Lord Jesus” (22:20).
Benedict XVI reflected that it is precisely, the beginning of the Liturgical Year helps us live anew the expectation of God who took flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary, God who makes himself little, who becomes a child.
Placing us in the care of the Holy Mother of God, the Pontiff concluded: “Let us entrust our prayers and our commitment to unborn life to the Virgin Mary, who welcomed the Son of God made man with her faith, with her maternal womb, with her attentive care, with her nurturing support, vibrant with love. Let us do so in the Liturgy – which is the place where we live the truth and where truth lives with us – adoring the divine Eucharist in which we contemplate Christ’s Body, that Body which took flesh from Mary through the action of the Holy Spirit, and was born of her in Bethlehem for our salvation. Ave, verum Corpus, natum de Maria Virgine!”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) tells us that the coming of God’s Son to earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries – “He makes everything converge on Christ: all the rituals and sacrifices, figures and symbols of the ‘First Covenant’. He announces him through the mouths of the prophets who succeeded one another in Israel. Moreover, he awakens in the hearts of the pagans a dim expectation of this coming” (CCC 522). The Catechism goes on to tell us that when the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah – “for by sharing in the long preparation for the Saviour’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating the precursor’s birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to his desire: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease’ [John 3:30]” (CCC 524).
Father Juan Javier Flores Arcas, O.S.B., who was the Rector of the Pontifical Athenaeum of Sant’ Anselmo (Rome), in one of his reflections on Advent underlines: “Advent is a real and present time that, seeing the messianic yesterday, launches us into the prophetic future. In the entire process is the Holy Trinity: The Father who creates, the Son who comes to this world to recreate it and the Holy Spirit who sanctifies and unites him in love.”
Let us invoke Saint Joseph, the nurturing father of Jesus, to lead us to meet the child God, still in his Year proclaimed by Pope Francis, which will close on December 8th.
At the conclusion of his Letter Patris Corde, Pope Francis adds this prayer to St Joseph, which he encourages all of us to pray together:
Hail, Guardian of the Redeemer,
Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
To you God entrusted his only Son;
in you Mary placed her trust;
with you Christ became man.
Blessed Joseph, to us too,
show yourself a father
and guide us in the path of life.
Obtain for us grace, mercy, and courage,
and defend us from every evil. Amen.
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