It's....... wait for it..... Advent

[japhy]

The new Church year has begun. First vespers on Saturday evening ushered in the new liturgical year (Year B of the Lectionary) and inaugurated Advent. Throughout most of the Catholic Church, Advent comprises the four Sundays (and their weekdays) before Christmas (December 25th). The Ambrosian tradition celebrates Advent for six Sundays.

What is Advent?

Pope Pius XII, in his 1947 encyclical on the liturgy Mediator Dei, wrote that during Advent, “the Church arouses in us the consciousness of the sins we have had the misfortune to commit, and urges us, by restraining our desires and practicing voluntary mortification of the body, to recollect ourselves in meditation, and experience a longing desire to return to God who alone can free us by His grace from the stain of sin and from its evil consequences.” (n. 154)

The word “advent” comes from the Latin adventus, which means “an arrival; a coming to”. The verb is advenire (“to arrive, to come to”): ad- (“towards”) + venire (“to come”). The season of Advent is the time when we celebrate the coming of the Messiah: not only making present his first coming (the Incarnation and then the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ) but also anticipating his second coming (his glorious and triumphant return at the end of the world).

But whenever there’s an arrival, there’s also… a wait. Advent is a season of waiting, of expectation. We are awaiting Christmas, the Nativity of the Lord. Now the secular world is telling us that it’s already Christmas, but the Church in her wisdom knows better than the secular world. We celebrate this season for only a few weeks, but the world was in the season of Advent for thousands of years.

The nation of Israel, the whole world, the whole universe was awaiting the coming of the Messiah, the Christos, the Christ. He came into the world through the mystery of the Incarnation, by which God the Son, the Word, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, manifested Himself on earth in a body of flesh and blood, Who “by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary, and became man.” (Nicene Creed, new English translation)

The Incarnation inaugurated the last nine months of that wait… and at the end of those nine months, all creation came to adore the Christ who had finally arrived: the poor, the rich, shepherds, Magi, sheep, angels, even the very stars themselves. This is why during Advent, we don’t sing the Gloria: we are anticipating the first singing of the Gloria by the angels to the shepherds of Bethlehem.

Here is an excerpt from Pope Benedict’s homily at first vespers on the First Sunday of Advent last year:
Advent is, par excellence, the season of hope. Every year this basic spiritual attitude is reawakened in the hearts of Christians, who, while they prepare to celebrate the great Feast of Christ the Savior’s Birth, revive the expectation of his glorious second coming at the end of time. …

[T]he celebration of Advent is the answer of the Church-Bride to the ever new initiative of God the Bridegroom, “who is and who was and who is to come” (Rev. 1:8). God offers to humanity, which no longer has time for him, further time, a new space in which to withdraw into itself in order to set out anew on a journey to rediscover the meaning of hope.
As the Catechism (#524) explains, “[w]hen 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 Savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. (cf. Rev. 22:17)”

Even the norms for the Roman liturgy seek to express the character of the season: “During Advent the floral decoration of the altar should be marked by a moderation suited to the character of this season, without expressing prematurely the full joy of the Nativity of the Lord. … In Advent the organ and other musical instruments should be used with a moderation that is consistent with the season’s character and does not anticipate the full joy of the Nativity of the Lord.” (GIRM 305, 313)

What does Advent mean for you?

 

[SeekerJen]

I love Advent. I think the longing of the entire Church is summed up perfectly in “O Come O Come Emmanuel”.

 

[Phemie]

I love Advent. I think the longing of the entire Church is summed up perfectly in “O Come O Come Emmanuel”.

Now if only our choir would sing it…

 

[Seatuck]

Now if only our choir would sing it…

Oh What a Shame. Our Choir sang it.

 

[Phemie]

Oh What a Shame. Our Choir sang it.

It looks as though we’ll have “O Come Divine Messiah” every week but no “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”.

I have nothing against “O Come Divine…”, although I prefer it in the original French, but I prefer the chant that is “O Come, O Come Emmanuel”.

 

[SeekerJen]

We had our annual Advent song and prayer service on Sunday evening. I think there were three renditions of “O Come O Come Emmanuel”. My favorite was the one played by the children’s bell choir.

 

[benedictgal]

I look forward lo singing O Come, O Come Emmanuel every Advent. When I planned the music for the weekend Masses, I used this venerable hymn for the entrance and then picked the recessional one based on what the readings were. For example:

First Sunday: The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns
2nd and 3rd Sunday On Jordan’s Bank
Fourth Sunday Lift Up Ye Heads, O Mighty Gates

With regard to Japhy’s original post, I was disappointed that EWTN didn’t carry the broadcasts of neither the First Vespers from St. Peter’s nor the Papal Mass from the Basilica of St. Lawrence. Luckily, we have Zenit’s coverage. Here is a segment of the homily that the Holy Father preached at the Basilica of St. Lawrence:

Adventus is a Latin word, which could be translated as “arrival,” “coming,” “presence.” In the language of the ancient world it was a technical term that indicated the arrival of a functionary, in particular the visit of a king or of the emperors of provinces, but it could also be used for the apparition of a divinity, who came out of his hidden dwelling and thus manifested his divine power: his presence was celebrated solemnly in worship.

By adopting the term Advent, Christians wished to express the special relationship that united them to the crucified and risen Christ. He is the king who, entering the poor province called earth, has made us the gift of his visit and, after his resurrection and ascension to heaven, has willed to remain among us; we perceive his mysterious presence in the liturgical assembly.

Celebrating the Eucharist, we proclaim in fact that he has not withdrawn from the world and has not left us alone and, though we cannot see or touch him, as is the case with material and sensible realities, he is with all of us and among us; what is more, he is in us, because in this way he can attract to himself and communicate his life to every believer who opens his heart to him.

My parochial vicar preached an impassioned homily reminding us that despite what the Mall and the drive-by media proclaim, we are not in the Christmas season. We are in Advent. Inasmuch as he said that he understood that the merchants need to do what they can so that they and their employees can support their families, we, as Catholics, need to remember that Christmas begins on the evening of December 24th.

 

[Among_Strangers]

japhy - nice OP thanks!