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A NEW COMPANION TO ADVENT & CHRISTMASTIDE
All booklets are published thanks to the generous support of the members of the Catholic Truth Society
CATHOLIC TRUTH SOCIETY PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY SEE
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CONTENTS Behold he is Coming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 The Advent Season. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Praying in the Season of Advent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Some Advent Saints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 Christmas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 The Christmas Saints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Epiphany. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 40 Days of Christmas?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
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BEHOLD HE IS COMING “Behold, He is coming!� It is the coming of the Word of God, the Word made flesh, which we celebrate, commemorate and anticipate in the seasons of Advent and Christmas. We celebrate Him, because He is coming to us now; we commemorate Him because He came once long ago in Bethlehem; we anticipate Him because His coming will eventually be made manifest in glory. What moods should prevail, what attitude should we take before that Coming, past, present and yet to come? We are glad and grateful when we think of the past, determined to reform our lives and be truly loving when we receive Him really present, reverent and even fearful in the face of the future. The liturgy and the traditional activities of this season reflect all these moods, intertwined and interactive, so that at the same time we can be penitent and joyful, awe-struck and confident, remorseful and ebullient. Christmas past When we reflect on Christmas past, we remember the actual historical events of the birth of Our Saviour. It was in a particular place, which some of us have visited, at a particular date, which we can calculate to within a year or so, that a particular woman, a fellow human creature, to
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whom we are all related, however distantly, gave birth to the Son of God. We read and re-read the ancient story, in St Matthew (1:18-2:23) and St Luke (1:5-2:52), and we ponder on the glorious meditation which St John (1:1-18) wrote on the meaning of what happened: God and Man are united, the creator and the creature made one. Nothing more important has ever happened or could happen. We are not on our own, trying to swim through the universe unaided: for God is with us, He is on our side; He shares our life so that we can share His. For that reason we rejoice, and express our joy in festivity and jollity. Christmas present When we reflect on Christmas present, we realise that this Christ who came long ago is with us now, truly present in the Sacrament of the Altar. At every moment of the day or night, somewhere in the world the Mass is being celebrated, and He comes again. In the Tabernacle He resides as the living heart of the parish. As we receive Him in Holy Communion we become, each of us, members of His Body, so that the Church throughout the world becomes “one body, one spirit in Christ�. The Eucharist is formed by the Church; the Church is formed by the Eucharist, so that Christ comes to us in each other, in the Church as a whole, precisely because in the Sacrament He comes into our innermost being, giving life and love. And so we express this in our mutual charity, to love one
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another as He loves us. To celebrate that presence we give presents to each other, gifts to those we know and love, to those we have failed to love enough, to those we do not know but are desperately in need of our love. Judgment yet to come When we reflect on Christmas yet to come, we cannot fail to be anxious and fearful, no matter how joyful and confident we are of His love, when we remember that at some date, maybe soon, maybe in millions of years’ time, human history will be wound up, and a reckoning made of all that we have done, all that we have failed to do. “For if you should mark our iniquities, Lord who could endure it?” (Ps 129:3) What terrible things we poor human creatures have done to each other, to the world God gave us, to the other creatures He made for our amusement! When the books are opened, and Our Lord comes as judge, how can any of us dare to claim any rights against Him? The judgment He makes is just, for it depends entirely on how we have fulfilled His commandment to love one another, as He loves us (Mt 25:1-46). But His judgment is loving and merciful, for all who acknowledge their guilt and fly to Him for forgiveness will surely be welcomed. That is why part of our Advent must be examination of conscience, confession and absolution; and a mood of penitence and self-denial that befits our realisation that we have failed to live in love in His presence.
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In the tradition of the Church the actual season of Advent was a time of penance, when with drab vestments the liturgy reflected on our need for God’s healing love; a time for confession and for simple living, cutting down on our excess of food and drink and entertainment to make space in our lives for the love of God and neighbour. It lasts, at the very most, twenty-eight days: it is followed by forty days of rejoicing! For twelve days, until the great and significant feast of Epiphany on 6th January, the Church went wild with joy, an unbroken time of gladness and charity; then until Candlemas the celebration continued, though on a more reasonable scale, as daily work began again, and the normal rhythm of life was restored to some extent. All that seems to have been swept away under the pressures of conformity to the secular world around us, but we should understand what these seasons once were: penance followed by rejoicing, and, as always, the Church offers us a season of rejoicing which is much longer than that of penitence!
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THE ADVENT SEASON A call to hope The season of advent is one of the most beautiful of the Church’s liturgical year. As the weather grows colder and the days shorten, the prayers and readings of this holy season inspire us with hope, encouraging us to look forward in joyful expectation to the coming of the ‘Sun of Justice’, Jesus Christ. ‘The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…’ (Is 9:2) Sadly, for so many who live in our secularised world, Advent has no meaning. Even for Catholics, it is so easy to pass the whole of December in a frantic preparation for Christmas. So many cards to post, presents to buy, preparations to make, meals to be cooked and eaten - and yet the Church invites us to spends these weeks in a very different spirit. Advent (from the Latin, Adventus) means ‘coming’. During this season we look forward to the coming of Jesus Christ and we practise that most difficult and necessary of virtues - patience. We also exercise the theological virtue of HOPE - a faith-filled trust in God’s promises. Pondering the marvellous works of God in the Old Testament, we long to see them fulfilled in the wonder of the Incarnation, and we also look forward to
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the final coming of Christ, his coming at the end of time, when those promises will be definitively fulfilled, and God will make all things new. The spirit of Advent The season of Advent falls into two halves: in the first part (and especially on the First Sunday) we look forward with hope to the Second Coming of Christ at the end of the world. In the second part, as the feast of Christmas draws nearer, we turn our minds to Bethlehem, and to the first coming of Christ among us, made flesh in the womb of Mary. St Bernard of Clairvaux, in a famous sermon on Advent, speaks of a ‘third coming’ of Christ, between his birth at Bethlehem and the Second Coming at the end of time. This third coming is the coming of Christ into our mind and hearts, made possible when we hear the word of God, and meditate upon it, and when we receive the sacraments which make our faith grow strong. ‘In short’ says St Bernard ‘The first coming was in flesh and in weakness, this intermediary coming is in the spirit and in power, the last coming will be in glory and majesty. This intermediary coming is like a road leading from the first to the last coming. In the first coming Christ was our redemption, in the last he will appear as our life, in this intermediary coming he is our rest and consolation’.
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Advent is the perfect time to meditate on this ‘third coming’ of Christ into our lives. How sad if we fail to welcome him, if we grow so busy in our preparations for Christmas that we neglect the very person we are supposed to be celebrating! Let us force ourselves to put aside a little space for prayer each day, to really learn the lesson of the Advent scriptures (some of the most lovely of the Church’s year), and to make a home in our hearts for Christ the Lord. The Advent Liturgy Historically, Advent is not one of the oldest seasons of the liturgical year. It originated, probably, about the Sixth or Seventh Century. Often beginning shortly after the feast of St Martin (11th November) it was known in the Middle Ages as ‘St Martin’s Lent’, and indeed it does share many of the characteristics of the Lenten season. The colour of the vestments is purple, the ‘Gloria’ is omitted, and Advent helps us prepare spiritually for Christmas in much the same way as Lent prepares us for Easter. Nevertheless, Advent has a special character all of its own. Our focus is not so much on penance for our sins as on waiting, patiently, for the fulfilment of the Lord’s promises, acknowledging as we do so that our world is still very much wounded by sin and in need of God’s redemption. As we noted above, purple vestments are worn during Advent, because purple is the colour of waiting. However,
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in many churches, on the Third Sunday of Advent (known as Gaudete or ‘rejoicing’ Sunday), pink or rose-coloured vestments are worn, signifying that we have reached the half-way point in the Advent journey, and a sign that the light of Christmas will shortly dawn upon us. The ‘Gloria’ is not sung because it is in origin a Christmas song - sung by the angels over Bethlehem. We will sing it again at Midnight Mass, the first Mass of the Nativity. Advent wreath In many churches it is now the custom to have an ‘Advent Wreath’ placed somewhere near the sanctuary. It consists of a circle of evergreen foliage (symbol of eternity) in which are placed five candles, which correspond to the colour of the vestments - three purple, one pink and one (in the centre) which is white. The wreath is blessed on the First Sunday of Advent and the candles are gradually lighted Sunday by Sunday, providing a simple visible reminder of the passing of the weeks of Advent, while the growing light of the candles anticipates the joyful season of Christmas when the final, white candle, will be lighted. Advent calendar In many homes, of course, it is the custom to have an ‘Advent Calendar’. The children of the house open a different window each day, ending with the opening of the last window on Christmas Eve. Like so much else in
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the Western world, this old practice has been commercialised in recent times, with calendars featuring cartoon characters and film stars, and the windows concealing chocolates and other treats! Try and find a proper Christian Advent calendar which focuses on the real meaning of the season. Your children will still enjoy opening the window each day, and it will be a daily reminder to them of the importance of our faith and the reason for our joy at Christmas.