Liturgy: The Church's Spirituality Bruce T. Morrill, S.J.
ADVENT: WATCHING FOR CHRIST’S
SECOND COMING,
REMEMBERING HIS FIRST
The
key to unlocking the spirituality of Christmas lies in recognizing
that this feast is a liturgical tradition in Roman Catholicism
(and,
indeed, for the Eastern and Orthodox churches, as well). As
a liturgical celebration, Christmas reveals and invites us in a
particular way into the paschal mystery, God’s ongoing redemption
of humanity and all creation through the birth, life, death, and
glorification of Christ. Sunday, the Day of the Resurrection,
is the original Christian feast. For well more than a century
it was the only feast of the Church, celebrated weekly with the
Word of God and the eucharistic body and blood of Christ, the liturgical
means Christ gave for his followers to share in the very reality
of his risen life and mission. Only in the later second and
then third centuries did churches expand their liturgy into annual
cycles, first and widely with the development of Easter, but also
in scattered places with an anniversary-commemoration of Jesus’ birth,
coinciding with the winter solstice festivals of the Mediterranean
world.
The celebrations of Christmas (the anniversary of
Jesus’ birth) and Epiphany (the appearance of God’s Son)
spread across the churches, East and West, in the fourth century.
In Rome the December 25th celebration of Jesus’ birth included
recollection of the shepherds’ adoration, while the "epiphany"
(manifestation) commemorated on January 6th was that of Christ to
the nations, as represented by the adoring wise men. Other
churches, however, including those in Gaul, Spain, North Africa,
and the Eastern Mediterranean, associated Epiphany with the manifestation
of Jesus as God’s Beloved Son at his baptism in the Jordan.
Not surprisingly, these churches baptized people on this feast and,
not surprisingly again, a period of baptismal preparation, marked
by prayer, ascetical practices, and more frequent (even daily) liturgy
developed. By the turn of the fifth century in Spain and Gaul
the start of this period of preparing for Christmas and Epiphany
was set at December 17th, exactly three weeks before January 6th,
the day on which the baptisms would take place. Only in the
sixth century did the church in Rome begin to celebrate Advent as
a period of preparation for Christmas and Epiphany, gradually arriving
at a four week period. In the seventh century, the primary
meaning of the season emerged as the preparation for the coming
of the Lord, but in a twofold sense: remembering his Nativity so
as to contemplate his glorious second coming at the end of time.
Today
the Roman Catholic celebration of Advent, as part of the liturgical
season of Christmas, is as much about watching for the day when
Christ will come again in glory as it is about preparing for the
annual feast of Jesus’ birth. Listen closely to the gospel
reading on the First Sunday in Advent. Whether from Matthew,
Mark, or Luke (depending on the three-year liturgical reading cycle),
the selected passage is from the very same chapters (Matthew 24,
Mark 13, Luke 21) proclaimed on the last Sundays of the liturgical
year each November. The Church begins its year on the same
note on which it ended: Be watchful for the day of the Lord’s
coming, live lives of Gospel faith, for you know not the day or
the hour! This is the theme through December 16th, with John
the Baptist sounding the apocalyptic cry in the gospel readings
of the second and third Sundays. On the 17th the focus shifts
to commemorating Christ’s first coming as the child born of
Mary.
How might Advent’s forward view toward the
Lord’s second coming and reflection back on his birth long
ago shape the way we practice the gift of our faith today? During
the first phase of Advent the liturgy invites us to embrace and
proclaim our troubled world’s longing for the final, definitive
inbreaking of the kingdom of God, Christ’s creation of a new
heavens and a new earth whereon the Sun of Justice will never set.
We join our hearts and voices, our bodies and spirits, with all
of creation-so riddled by war, poverty, disease, and pollution-in
the groaning appeal for salvation. But therein lies the gift of
the season. If we enter into the liturgical tradition the groan
becomes an expectant cry, a confident assurance that the Lord who
will one day make all things new renews our strength and grants
us peace as we join in his mission of compassion, mercy and forgiveness.
The second and final phase of Advent grounds this confidence in
the quiet joy of remembering the Lord’s humble birth, the awesome
mystery of God’s very love emptied out in the life of a child,
Emmanuel, God is with us now.
The
key to unlocking the spirituality of Christmas lies in recognizing
that this feast is a liturgical tradition in Roman Catholicism
(and,
indeed, for the Eastern and Orthodox churches, as well). As
a liturgical celebration, Christmas reveals and invites us in a
particular way into the paschal mystery, God’s ongoing redemption
of humanity and all creation through the birth, life, death, and
glorification of Christ. Sunday, the Day of the Resurrection,
is the original Christian feast. For well more than a century
it was the only feast of the Church, celebrated weekly with the
Word of God and the eucharistic body and blood of Christ, the liturgical
means Christ gave for his followers to share in the very reality
of his risen life and mission. Only in the later second and
then third centuries did churches expand their liturgy into annual
cycles, first and widely with the development of Easter, but also
in scattered places with an anniversary-commemoration of Jesus’ birth,
coinciding with the winter solstice festivals of the Mediterranean
world.
Today
the Roman Catholic celebration of Advent, as part of the liturgical
season of Christmas, is as much about watching for the day when
Christ will come again in glory as it is about preparing for the
annual feast of Jesus’ birth. Listen closely to the gospel
reading on the First Sunday in Advent. Whether from Matthew,
Mark, or Luke (depending on the three-year liturgical reading cycle),
the selected passage is from the very same chapters (Matthew 24,
Mark 13, Luke 21) proclaimed on the last Sundays of the liturgical
year each November. The Church begins its year on the same
note on which it ended: Be watchful for the day of the Lord’s
coming, live lives of Gospel faith, for you know not the day or
the hour! This is the theme through December 16th, with John
the Baptist sounding the apocalyptic cry in the gospel readings
of the second and third Sundays. On the 17th the focus shifts
to commemorating Christ’s first coming as the child born of
Mary.