What I love about Advent and Christmas most as a Catholic

[Marie5890]

Is that they are actually seasons, not just a day.

Advent (and Lent for that matter) doesnt exist for Mormons, my former faith.
One of the most beautiful things about Advent and Christmas (as well as Lent and Easter) is that they are a season, a time period more than just 24 hours…

What a beautiful gift of time for meditation and contemplation on the meanings of the Incarnation, the the death and resurrection of our Lord…

It’s a time period of true joy…not just an event…

I love Advent…I place myself in the shoes of Our Blessed Lady and St Joseph as they wait in keen anticipation…Not to mention Israel at large even though His coming was lost on so many of them…

I thank God every day for the gift and traditions that are part of our Catholic faith…rich alive and every flowing …

Nothing stale, stagnate about our liturgical year at all…

 

[twopekinguys]

Advent is also one of my favorite times in the liturgical calendar.

The whole period of preparation and contemplation is very impactful. It really affects my prayer life.

 

[Marie5890]

Advent is also one of my favorite times in the liturgical calendar.

The whole period of preparation and contemplation is very impactful. It really affects my prayer life.

Twopekinguys, you are one of my most favorites here on CAF. What does your identifying as both “catholic and protestant” mean to you on your profile mean? Thanks my friend.

 

[tundramom]

I agree! As a former Mormon, turned Christian in the Assembly of God and finally HOME as a Catholic… wow.

Unfortunately there’s a lot of protestant churches who don’t celebrate a liturgical calendar either.

Still, even though I love Advent, I think I love Lent even more. The Triduum is my favorite time of year!

Steph

 

[The_Reginator]

Celebrate Advent . . . With a Fast!

**Advent is called a “little Lent,” because, like Lent, it is a time of repentance. **While fasting during Advent used to be universal, most Western Christians today treat Advent as an early part of the Christmas season. Eastern Rite Catholics (and the Eastern Orthodox), however, continue to celebrate Advent with the Philip’s Fast, named after the Apostle Philip. The fast doesn’t really have anything to do with the Apostle Philip, other than the fact that it starts on November 15, the day after his feast in the Eastern calendar. It runs through Christmas Eve, December 24.

I’ve never been good at this.
I only converted to Catholicism in 1996. It took a while for me to even hear this idea.
I hope to try again this year.
And hopefully I can locate my Advent candles for my Advent wreath.
I refuse to start to celebrate Christmas until December 24th. (The same day, incidentally, that I begin my Christmas shopping. )
I listen to Christmas carols from Midnight Mass until Epiphany – January 6th. (I’ve left stores that play Christmas music too early.)

I do love Advent and Christmas, but the highlight of the year for me is Lent and the Easter Triduum.

 

[Marie5890]

I agree! As a former Mormon, turned Christian in the Assembly of God and finally HOME as a Catholic… wow.

Unfortunately there’s a lot of protestant churches who don’t celebrate a liturgical calendar either.

Still, even though I love Advent, I think I love Lent even more. The Triduum is my favorite time of year!

Steph

Tundramom …I had never experienced profound worship until my first experience with being immersed in the Triduum…

I had trears of profound worship flow down my cheeks when I finally understood “worship of the Triune God”

Glory be to the Father
and to the Son
and to the Holy Ghost
Amen

 

[WetCatechumen]

Is that they are actually seasons, not just a day.

Advent (and Lent for that matter) doesnt exist for Mormons, my former faith.
One of the most beautiful things about Advent and Christmas (as well as Lent and Easter) is that they are a season, a time period more than just 24 hours…

What a beautiful gift of time for meditation and contemplation on the meanings of the Incarnation, the the death and resurrection of our Lord…

It’s a time period of true joy…not just an event…

I love Advent…I place myself in the shoes of Our Blessed Lady and St Joseph as they wait in keen anticipation…Not to mention Israel at large even though His coming was lost on so many of them…

I thank God every day for the gift and traditions that are part of our Catholic faith…rich alive and every flowing …

Nothing stale, stagnate about our liturgical year at all…

I, for a time, nearly became Mormon.

For me, the joy of my first Christmas as a Catholic catechumen was indescribable. LDS do not believe in the Incarnation. It has no meaning for them.

What ultimately converted me and made me love the orthodox faith in the Triune God was St. Athanasios’s argument against Arius: The divine, immortal, creator assumed the nature of the human, mortal, creature, in order to in turn bestow upon us his corresponding traits. The humility of the one and only eternal God becoming a great ape was simply astounding. I wanted to believe it so bad because it was so beautiful.

Advent is a season of preparation for Christmas. It was weird, because as a Protestant (what I was raised) there were never seasons like this. Christmas was a time for family and presents - Christ was hardly mentioned. The churches I went to never had a service on Christmas (Christ-Mass) day unless it was Sunday. Without Advent, knowing that we are sinful creatures who joyfully anticipate the coming of our savior, then the whole celebration seems pointless. A faithful and pious Advent greatly multiplies the joy of Christmas.

During the processional, I pretty much started bawling in the middle of Adeste Fideles - which was funny because I was singing it at the top of my lungs and I had come to Mass with a young woman I had just met the previous week.

Christmas is my favorite. God has become man and humanity has been reconciled to him. Rejoice! Emmanuel will come to thee, Israel.

 

[The_Reginator]

I, for a time, nearly became Mormon.

For me, the joy of my first Christmas as a Catholic catechumen was indescribable.** LDS do not believe in the Incarnation. It has no meaning for them.**

What I find a little disturbing is that at Christmas time, for most of my life, the media love to use carols sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Does it make any sense for them to be singing about the glory of the Incarnation???

 

[Reuben_J]

Marie5890:

Is that they are actually seasons, not just a day.

Advent (and Lent for that matter) doesnt exist for Mormons, my former faith.
One of the most beautiful things about Advent and Christmas (as well as Lent and Easter) is that they are a season, a time period more than just 24 hours…

What a beautiful gift of time for meditation and contemplation on the meanings of the Incarnation, the the death and resurrection of our Lord…

Yes it is a season to prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus. It’s a time to put ourselves to meditate and to relive the experience of emptiness and hopelessness without the Messiah and how that immediately changes as we look forwards to the promise of God’s salvation. Emptiness turns into abundant richness and hopelessness turns into fulfilling hope.

How too it reminds us for the need of a Savior, that we are nothing without him and thus without Advent for there is nothing to hope for. How it reminds us that we are so unworthy because of our sins but God makes us worthy that we are worthy enough for him to send his own Son who will eventually die for our very own sin.

Marie5890:

It’s a time period of true joy…not just an event…

True joy when we realize that we do have a Savior after all and that’s joy beyond description. The implication of the event to come, that’s Christmas where God made man become flesh in our mist.

Marie5890:

I love Advent…I place myself in the shoes of Our Blessed Lady and St Joseph as they wait in keen anticipation…Not to mention Israel at large even though His coming was lost on so many of them…

And so are we as we anticipate this remembrance and our own new birth in our Baptism.

Marie5890:

I thank God every day for the gift and traditions that are part of our Catholic faith…rich alive and every flowing …

Nothing stale, stagnate about our liturgical year at all…

That’s the beauty of the liturgy and the Sacrament. The Church Fathers who planned it must be led by the Holy Spirit. The richness of spiritual experience that can be harnessed even as we merely follow the liturgical calendar; the awesome journey we pass through that’s being navigated by the liturgy throughout the year is one long retreat for the soul; it’s as if we are reliving the whole Bible once again, year after year.

God bless you for sharing this beautiful aspect of the faith. In this non-Catholic religion section this topic is probably not that often shared.

 

[WetCatechumen]

What I find a little disturbing is that at Christmas time, for most of my life, the media love to use carols sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.
Does it make any sense for them to be singing about the glory of the Incarnation???

Oh, they think they love the Incarnation.

But because they think that God the Father already had a physical body, that we ourselves are eternal, then Jesus Christ, merely the oldest son, being born on the earth meant nothing.

But in Christianity, the humility and condescension of God is made manifest in his choosing voluntarily to assume our nature which we had corrupted and redeem him.

We have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods. Jesus Christ was the Omnipotent and Eternal God from eternity. He has no beginning, but there was a time when he was, and we were not.

When the oldest spirit Son of God, who is like us in every way except he was begotten first and thus given authority, naturally assumes a physical body like he should have in the first place, and becomes just like one of us, just as we were always one of him and he one of us and the Father merely the natural father of us all, then the meaning of the Incarnation is lost. In this paradigm, God does not descend. Jesus Christ is no more God than us and he no more God than his first begotten son. It is a pagan pantheon of gods and goddesses, reproducing in infinite regression.

However, when the creator assumes the nature of created things in order to redeem them from their rebellion, that is a glorious event for which glory shall be to him forevermore.

To the LDS reading this, I apologize if it seems offensive. I don’t mean it to be. I have many LDS friends, I’m taking a class at my local Institute even (free parking for school. Yay!)

However, while many LDS I know are pious, faithful, and holy, the beauty of the orthodox faith is lost because of erroneous, but well-intended beliefs.

I will also say, in fairness, that I didn’t really get this as a Protestant and that American Evangelical Protestantism has lost much of the joy in the Incarnation and tends to view God as a disembodied spirit named “Jesus” or “the Lord” and glosses over the physicality and events of his life.

I mean, they read about them in scripture and know about them, but they don’t really celebrate them.

 

[KathleenGee]

Wetcatechumen,

Like your sharing in this post…Advent season is very powerful of peace and its depth in our hearts. Time for renewal. I wish more non-Catholics would atleast take a look at our circular liturgical year.

Our year is circular because our daily lives are centered around Christ. The Jews also use a circular calendar, their daily lives revolving around God the Creator.

 

[The_Reginator]

Wetcatechumen,

Like your sharing in this post…Advent season is very powerful of peace and its depth in our hearts. Time for renewal. I wish more non-Catholics would atleast take a look at our circular liturgical year.

Our year is circular because our daily lives are centered around Christ. The Jews also use a circular calendar, their daily lives revolving around God the Creator.

I find it both bothersome and disheartening to see/hear festive decorations and music while trying to focus on a penitential season.