I wrote these notes to speak to a U.S. audience in 2007, in liturgical year ‘A.’
The word ‘advent’ is derived from the Latin word ‘adventus,’ which means ‘coming’ or ‘arrival.’ Ancient pagans celebrated the annual arrival of a certain deity to dwell in his temple. The pagans would open a temple and prepare for his arrival. They moved a statue representing the deity from a small place of repose to a large place of prominence in the temple to signify that he had (as they imagined) arrived. The Latin word adventus referred to the annual arrival of that deity.
In another context in the Roman Empire, ‘adventus’ also referred to the coming of the emperor to a province or country of his empire. So for Christians the word ‘adventus’ was a natural choice for denoting the coming of the King of Kings.
Advent season begins our new liturgical year. Our season of Advent has a two-fold purpose.
Advent prepares us to commemorate the Incarnation of the living God and His birth in poverty on the Solemnity of the Nativity.
Advent also prepares us for the second coming of Jesus in human history, His parousia at the end of the age.
Our Church has a liturgical year, five seasons in which we can re-present and remember the events of salvation history from the creation of the world onward. The mysteries of salvation history do not change, but we change as we age. So each year, when we encounter in our liturgies God’s saving works in the history of mankind, we should be better prepared to learn and to understand God’s plan to save each of us. When the familiar feasts arrive during the liturgical year, we can probably understand and appreciate more of what God has done for humanity and individuals because we have lived another year, matured a bit more and become closer to God.
God should be the center of our lives. Worship is the best thing that we can do as humans. If Adam and Eve had been worshiping our Father, they wouldn’t have been listening to the father of lies. The same is true today. We should seek first the kingdom of Heaven and His righteousness rather than giving only our spare time to God. Lip service is not enough. Believing that Jesus exists is not enough. We should be cultivating a relationship with Him each day that we awake.
Advent is a season of joy and a season of penance. We feel joy in anticipating the Nativity, yet we should prepare to celebrate it worthily as Christ’s disciples. We must strive to be properly disposed to receive so great a gift as His Real Presence.
Yes, though Jesus came to us at a certain time in human history, He comes to us again and again in various ways. He speaks to us in our consciences, we hear Him in the Word of God proclaimed, He comes to us in the Holy Eucharist, and we encounter Him in our brothers and sisters who are needy, suffering, oppressed, tired and grieving.
So we should be ready to receive and welcome Jesus whenever He comes, however He comes to us.
Our forefathers, the Jews, during centuries of oppression and persecution, anticipated the coming of a promised Savior to free them, restore their dignity, restore their promised homeland and usher in a new reign. We read in the prophetic books of Hebrew scripture of their longing for a Messiah. Read the words of the prophets Daniel and Isaiah.
At the time of his birth, many Jews eagerly awaited a Messiah, while others may have been passively waiting, not really expecting the long-awaited Messiah to arrive in their lifetimes.
I guess that then, as today, some of God’s chosen people were not striving to prepare their hearts and minds for the arrival of their king. Perhaps it seemed so far off, not imminent, so they didn’t prepare to receive Him. I believe that many of us, avowed Christians, are not preparing ourselves to receive Jesus coming again in glory at the end of the age or to receive Him into our souls today. How do we prepare to commemorate the first coming of the Son of God to us? Do we consider that arrival in Palestine, so long ago, as legendary and not very relevant to our daily lives?
The incarnation of God is one of the most amazing mysteries. That the one, true God, not a mythical deity, but the Creator of the universe, would become a man and live among us is fantastic. The way that God became enfleshed is astounding. The fact that God Almighty would deign to become a man born in poverty then work and die in poverty is absolutely amazing and contrary to human wisdom.
The Jews had expected the Messiah, a new Davidic king, to come in glory and reign mightily. Yet God, in His wisdom, confounded our limited reason and humbled Himself to become a man born into poverty, a refugee, an obedient son, a tekton, an itinerant preacher, a fugitive and a convict tortured and killed. Our Catechism says that the incarnation, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus, considered together, is the pivotal moment in human history.
Although God became incarnate a long time ago, He desires to reign today in each of us, and thus He gave us a living memorial: the Most Blessed Sacrament. And He sent the Holy Spirit to us to aid us as we await His second coming. Though we might consider the advent of Jesus as a past event, we would do well to look forward, as the Jews did, to His coming in glory, in our lives, in the kingdom here and now, and at the end of the age.
And our anticipation of His reign in our hearts and over all the world should be active, not passive. To anticipate Jesus’ reign, we could prepare by striving for justice for our neighbors and loving them. We know that many of our neighbors, much of the world is groaning under duress of war, genocide, slavery, abject poverty, diseases and other suffering. We should prepare the way for the Lord to come again and reign by following His commands to love Him wholeheartedly and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Peter of Blois wrote that “there are three comings of our Lord; the first in the flesh, the second in the soul, the third at judgment.” And he wrote, “Nothing is more sure than death, and nothing less sure than the hour of death. We don’t know when Jesus will come again. And we don’t know when we will die and be judged by Him. So we should prepare now to meet Jesus whenever He decides.
The Church has given us this season of Advent for preparation by repentance, purification, and reordering our lives to make room for God. Though indeed God already came in the person of Jesus two thousand years ago, we are encouraged, in this season, to make space in our lives, indeed in our souls for our Lord.
How do we observe Advent today? By shopping and baking cookies? As if we weren’t already distracted enough from the concerns of God, it seems that this month we drown God’s voice whispering to us by playing insipid jingles about mythical figures and reindeer, shopping, going from party to party, wrapping toys and making fruitcake?
The Puritans, hundreds of years ago, recognized that partying distracted people from the meaning of the Nativity of the son of God. Their solution was to completely ban the Feast of the Nativity. Our (Roman Catholic) approach is not to ban Christmas celebration nor the Christmas season but to reserve our partying for that season. We are to spend the Advent season in prayerful preparation for the feast of the Nativity, for the coming of God into each of our hearts and for the coming of God on judgment day. Psalm 46 reads, “Be still and know that I am God.”
Can we reserve quiet time each day for God? Can we make space in our lives for God who has already come and Who desires to abide in us?
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the evolution of the Advent season:
When the Solemnity of ChristMass was instituted in the mid-300s in Rome, it was not a universal feast. After a while, the Solemnity had spread to Gallic and Germanic countries and was celebrated on December 25 or January 6 as the start of the Church year. Before the 600s, the Nativity was a secondary feast, especially in Rome. Remembering the suffering, death and resurrection of the Son of God was far more important. But eventually the Nativity assumed greater importance and received greater devotion from the Christian faithful.
Advent evolved as a season anticipating the Nativity Feast. In Rome, the word ‘advent’ referred to the first coming of our Lord in His Nativity, not His parousia. For Roman Catholics, Advent was up to five weeks and six Sundays of preparation for the Feast of the Nativity, which substituted for the pagan Saturnalia in December, which included feasting, gift-giving, partying in costumes and general licentiousness.
Elsewhere, in the Gotho-Germanic lands – France, Spain & Germany – the weeks preceding the Feast of the Nativity were a time of reverent and penitential preparation for the commemoration of the incarnation of God who humbled Himself to serve us and to save us.
The Nativity coincided with the winter solstice, the ‘rebirth’ of the sun, and was thus a time of joyful celebration. But the weeks preceding it were cold and dark as the sun circled lower in the sky each day. The pagans had a somber, darkening season before the sun’s rebirth. And the Christians in these lands observed a season of austerity and fasting before the coming of their Son – the true light of the world.
The Church’s Council of Saragossa in 380 effectively began the Advent season by forbidding the faithful to be absent from Church during the three weeks from December 17 to the Epiphany, during the pagan Yule season, when Christians, especially the new converts, were tempted to party with the pagans in the solstice Saturnalia.
In the late 400s, dioceses in what is now Spain and France had close links to Eastern Catholic Churches and celebrated ChristMass on January 6 at the Lord’s epiphany.
In Gaul, now France and Belgium, Advent evolved under the influence of Irish missionaries who promoted a penitential preparation for Christ’s second coming. They prepared for the Epiphany with 40 days of fasting and penance, similar to Lent, perhaps because Epiphany was a time of baptisms, like the Easter vigil Mass. In monasteries throughout Gaul, monks fasted on all Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of the year, with more austerity during Lent, the week after Pentecost, and December before the Nativity feast. Saturdays and Sundays were excluded from fasting, as during Lent.
In 490, Bishop Perpetuus of Tours, in Gaul ( now France), ordered everyone in his diocese to fast on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from November 11 until ChristMass to maintain a desired 40 days of preparation like that of Lent before Easter.
Bishop Caesarius, in the 500s, wrote homilies about preparing one’s heart to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity. In the Synod of Lyrida, in 524, Advent, rather than the Nativity, was recognized as the beginning of our liturgical year. In 567, bishops at the Synod of Tours established a December fast for their dioceses. In 581, the Council of Macon also ordered an Advent fast from November 11 to Nativity on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
The austere disciplines of Advent spread throughout Gothic and Germanic countries as bishops in many dioceses made rules about abstaining from mead, ale, beer, cheese, meat, fish, weddings, amusements, feasting, gambling, travel for pleasure and sexual intercourse, beginning on the autumnal equinox in September, November 11 or November 15.
In the 1917/1918 Code of Canon Law, the Church reduced the required fast days to zero. Yet Advent continued to be a penitential season in which feasts, parties and weddings are prohibited. Greek Catholics still observe the Advent fast for forty days, from the feast of Saint Philip on November 14 to Epiphany.
Speaking of the duration of Advent, early on it included six Sundays preceding Epiphany, the manifestation of Our Lord, when new Christians were baptized, and later, six Sundays preceding the Nativity. In various dioceses in various ages the length of the season varied from three weeks to forty days. Pope Saint Gregory the Great, who governed from 590-604, reduced the length of Advent for the Roman Catholic Church to four Sundays, and he composed seasonal prayers and antiphons for liturgies.
We observe Advent for the four Sundays preceding December 25. Advent season lasts 22 to 28 days because the Fourth Sunday is one to six days before December 25. This year we begin Sunday, December 3, and the Fourth Sunday is December 24. Because that’s the day immediately preceding December 25, also hosts a ChristMass vigil in the evening.
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mixed themes:
It seems that an accident of history contributed to the mixed theme of Advent: joy mixed with penitence. In some Gallic dioceses, churches used Roman missals which had been brought by missionaries and by monks establishing new monasteries. These Roman missals didn’t contain a severe penitential theme. In France, in 754, King Pepin was crowned by Pope Stephen, then he ordered that all missals in his kingdom be Roman. As a result, the shorter, non-penitential Advent season spread further throughout Gaul. Because missals were slowly hand-copied by monks, there was a long time of changeover, an era when liturgies according to Roman rites and liturgies of Gallic rites were celebrated in the kingdom, and thus the joyful, shorter, Roman-style Advent season was celebrated in some places while the longer, penitential Advent influenced by eastern Catholic Churches, missionaries and monks continued.
King Charlemagne, who succeeded his father, King Pepin, was also impressed by the Roman Catholic Church, so he continued to promulgate the Roman missals throughout France. I don’t know why, but King Charlemagne’s advisor, Alcuin improvised liturgical texts, mixing of Gallic and Roman Mass prayers, so that the French weren’t celebrating purely Roman rite Masses nor Rome’s Advent season.
The strange thing is that in the late 900s, the Roman Church, to revise or restore its liturgies, began borrowing missals from Cluniac monasteries, hoping to return to authentic, traditional worship. Unfortunately, unknowingly, the missals which Rome borrowed to copy were not the old, purely Roman missals that had been carried forth centuries earlier by monks and missionaries, but relatively recent conglomerations of Roman and French liturgies. But the newer rites were used, and eventually they were considered authentically Roman and became official liturgies of the medieval Latin-rite Church. In this way, an Advent season of only four Sundays, 22-28 days, with the combination theme of penance and joy spread throughout the Roman Catholic Church.
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modern Advent season liturgies:
Our Catechism reads, in paragraph 524, “When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present the 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.” Do we have an ardent desire for His second coming? In Advent liturgies, we echo the Hebrews’ longing-for, and preparation for, the first coming of the Savior. This, in turn, helps us to long for and prepare for His second coming at a time we do not know.
Our Church takes us back to the time before the Savior came, when Israel awaited a Messiah. Throughout its history, Israel cried out, “How long, oh Lord? How long?” Isaiah 6:11, Psalm 6:3, Psalm 13:1-2
We, too, should eagerly await the reign of the Messiah who will return in glory. We should not only prepare the way of the Lord by working for peace, justice and equitable distribution of resources for all. We should also prepare our souls for Him to rule each of us.
We also read that the Lord had wondered about His chosen people, “How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws?” and “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe, in spite of all the signs which I have wrought among them?” (Nm 14:11) Jesus, after He had come to Earth, asked, “Oh faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you?” (Mt 17:17)
November 16 in Mass we heard, in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus say, “they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory,” and “But of that day or hour, no one knows.”
Last Sunday we heard about Jesus’ kingship in the prophet Daniel’s words, “I saw one like a Son of man coming, on the clouds of Heaven.” And from Apocalypse we heard, “Behold, he is coming amid the clouds,and every eye will see him.” In John’s Gospel, Jesus said, “For this I was born and I came into the world, to testify to the truth.”
On Sunday, in Holy Mass, we will hear from the prophet Jeremiah about a successor to King David. And Saint Paul’s letter reads, “Strengthen your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus,” referring to His second coming.
In the Gospel, Jesus tells His disciples, “On earth nations will be in dismay… People will die in fright in anticipation of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. And they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. … Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand. Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from carousing and drunkenness and the anxieties of daily life, and that day catch you by surprise like a trap. … Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength … to stand before the Son of Man.” Where do you stand? Are our hearts drowsy from partying or worrying?
On Friday, December 8, we will celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Listen to Saint Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, which, though about Christians of Ephesus, can also be about us, and also about the Blessed Virgin Mary: “He chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him. In him we were also chosen, destined in accord with the purpose of the One who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will, so that we exist for the praise of his glory, who first hoped in Christ.”
Mother Mary had said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Mary, as a devout Jew, and her parents before her, “hoped in Christ” and praised His glory long before the Ephesians and before us.
In the Gospel on December 8, we will hear of the annunciation of God’s will for the conception of His Son, as we did on March 25, in the Mass of the Annunciation. This may be what leads people to believe that the feast of the Immaculate Conception is about the Christ’s immaculate conception.
However, we are hearing the Lord’s greatest angelic messenger hail Mary of Nazareth as a person who is “full of grace,” implying that no sin is in her. She is “full of grace,” so she had no room for vice or sin. She was purely good.
Gabriel said, “Do not be afraid,Mary,” which implies that she felt proper, reverential awe – fear of the Lord and His messenger. In Mary’s fiat she acceded to God’s holy will because she had no trace of selfishness.
On the Second Sunday of Advent, we will hear Saint Paul advise his spiritual children in Philippi to be “pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruits of righteousness,” which reminds me of Mother Mary. Saint Paul is confident “that the one who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Obviously he refers to the Lord’s second coming.
In the Gospel, Saint Luke will introduce John the Baptizer as the herald of the Messiah’s first advent, proclaiming a “baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” Saint John exhorted the Jews to examine their lives, then repent, renounce their sins, be baptized and commit their lives to YHWH before the Messiah’s imminent arrival.
We Christians are encouraged to examine our lives, repent and recommit our selves to the Christ Who saved us and will come again to claim us. We don’t have to seek a prophet in a desert wasteland. We can encounter the penetrating Word of God in Holy Bibles and in our liturgies. We are fortunate to have an abundance of deacons and priests to proclaim the Living Word, call us to repentance and guide our examination of our lives in the Light of God’s word. We have ample opportunities for repentance in the Sacrament of Reconciliation; we can go on any Saturday afternoon.
December 12 is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas when we’ll hear, from the book of the prophet Zechariah, “See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the Lord.” Also, “Silence, all mankind, in the presence of the Lord! For he stirs forth from his holy dwelling.” Remember the psalm, “Be still and know that I am God?” We should devote quiet time to our Lord during this season.
December 17, the Third Sunday of Advent, before the start of Mass, we could proclaim the ancient entrance antiphon, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! The Lord is near.” This is the source for name ‘Gaudete Sunday,’ as ‘rejoice’ is ‘gaudete’ in the Latin text that was used. The first reading is all about relief, joy and exultation at the advent of the promised “mighty savior.” The psalm is Isaiah 12, “Give thanks to the Lord, acclaim His name.” “Sing praise to the Lord” “Shout with exultation… for great in your midst is the Holy One.”
In the second reading we hear again from Saint Paul, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayers and petition, make your requests known to God.”
The gospel acclamation says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor.” And in the Gospel, John the Baptizer advises inquirers to amend their ways, cease sinning and anticipate the advent of the Messiah Who will baptize them with the Holy Spirit. “Exhorting them in many other ways, he preached good news to the people.”
On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the prophet Micah says that Bethlehem will produce a ruler “whose origin is from of old, from ancient times” who will “shepherd his flock by the strength of the Lord, in the majestic name of the Lord.”
In the second reading, Saint Paul tells the Hebrews that Jesus had said that He came into the world to do the will of His Father and to consecrate us for the Father by His atoning sacrifice. In Saint Luke’s Gospel, we’ll hear of Mother Mary hastening to visit her kinswoman, Elizabeth, who was filled with the Holy Spirit. Saint Elizabeth says “Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
This can also refer to all the Jews who were blessed through their faith that the Messianic prophecies “would be fulfilled.” And blessed are you, today, if you believe “that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”
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a history of the Feast of the Nativity & Christ Mass:
The Middle English term Christmas has been used in English-speaking countries since the Middle Ages to refer to the Mass of Christ’s Nativity. It’s derived from the Old English words Christes Maesse, seen in 1038 A.D., and Cristes-messe, read in 1131 A.D.
In ChristMass, our Eucharistic liturgies of course lose their penitential mood as we celebrate the arrival of our savior. Though Jesus was born into poverty, we normally decorate our churches for a joyful welcome of our King.
During ChristMass we omit the Kyrie, and we resume singing the Gloria which the Bethlehem shepherds heard angels sing. The Gospel, which spells out the life of the Holy Family, becomes the highlight of the Liturgy of the Word during the ChristMass season and Epiphany.
Many people credit Saint Francis of Assisi with creating the second Nativity scene, to serve as a focal for private devotion. We know that Saint Francis tethered an ox and a donkey beside a rocky cave which was thought to be the nature of Christ’s birthplace in Bethlehem, and he used real people for the characters of the scene. Perhaps this is the origin of the tradition of animals in the scene, for there is no mention of them in the Bible.
You may be surprised to hear that the early Christians seem to have little interest in the circumstances of the Messiah’s birth. They were focused on evangelizing the world, with the good news of His suffering, death and resurrection, to prepare for His return.
They celebrated Christ’s Last Supper weekly and annually and honored martyrs and saints in annual feasts for hundreds of years before the anniversary of the Lord’s birth became an instituted tradition. The early Christians, who thought that Jesus would come again soon, focused on His atoning sacrifice, resurrection and ascension and strove to be ready to greet Him when He comes again.
Eventually, the Church’s desire to ‘live’ liturgically the entire mystery of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus led to celebration of His Nativity. Rome had instituted a Nativity feast by 336 AD, and probably earlier than that. No one can be sure why Christians chose December 25. Scholars have three theories, based on three tendencies of early Christians:
(1) their great respect for symbolism, (2) their relation to the natural world – the stars, seasons, weather, plants and animals, and (3) their attempts to ‘compete against’ paganism.
Regarding symbolism and the natural world: Every year people noted that at the end of the solar year, nights were longer and colder as the sun arced lower and lower in the sky until the winter solstice, when it began to rise higher in the sky each day. The winter solstice, observed for millennia by people in the northern hemisphere, was December 25 on the Julian calendar. So the Christians adopted that feast day of the resurgent sun for their feast of the Son of God.
Mithra was an imaginary Persian sun god whose cult was popular in the Roman empire. Mithra’s worshipers celebrated the rebirth of their sun god on the apparent “birthday of the unconquered sun,” which is to say the winter solstice, when the sun seems to be reborn.
.In 274 AD, Emperor Aurelian proclaimed that Mithra was the principal patron of his empire. He promoted the annual birthday feast to promote unity of people throughout the empire by way of a common religion.
This sun cult was a threat to Christianity, as believe it or not, the two religions reportedly shared some religious discipline, doctrine and symbolism such as initiation, fasting, immersion, a sacred meal of bread and wine mixed with water for new members, fellowship gestures and belief in the immortality of souls.
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So our Church celebrated the feast of the Nativity on December 25, the winter solstice, when the sun-god’s ‘re-birth day’ was popular. Our gospels tell of the Light of the world banishing the darkness. So perhaps Christians wanted to celebrate the birth of the unconquerable Light of the world while everyone around them was celebrating the “birthday of the unconquered sun.”
Some scholars challenge this theory, asserting that the Nativity was already celebrated on the solstice by 274, when Aurelian promoted Mithra’s birthday, and that while Christianity was an outlawed religion, and Christians were persecuted and killed, Christians wouldn’t be in the mood to co-opt their persecutors’ pagan feast day for such an important mystery of their faith, the Incarnation of the one true God.
Another theory says that the Nativity feast date hinges on the dates of the commemoration of the Lord’s death and resurrection. During the first two centuries of Christianity, the entire liturgical year centered on these mysteries of Christ triumphing over death. And according to the Julian calendar, Jesus was killed on March 25, so the Paschal mysteries were celebrated then.
And the Paschal mystery included all of the Incarnation of the Savior – His miraculous conception, birth, suffering, murder and resurrection. The anniversary of His death at Passover also remembered that He had come down from Heaven and was born of a woman so that He could sacrifice Himself to atone for our sins.
This sounds strange to us, but the Jews had been remembering the births and deaths of their patriarchs on the same days. And Christians’ annual memorials of martyrs’ deaths were considered their birthdays as they entered the next life.
So nine months after March 25, when the conception – and passion and death – of the Messiah had been remembered, the birth of the Savior was celebrated. December 25 follows March 25 by nine months.
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When Emperor Constantine became protector and promoter of Christianity in 313, and the Feast of the Nativity could be celebrated openly by the erstwhile persecuted Christians, the feast of the Nativity had been celebrated on December 25 for decades, so it wasn’t moved. Rather, the pagan birthday of the imaginary sun god was abolished.
Since the Feast of the Nativity has been fixed on December 25, some people have tried to argue that it was the historical birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, based on assumptions rather than evidence.
The main assumption is that Zechariah was in the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement on the Jewish calendar, which was approximately September 25 on the Julian calendar, the autumnal equinox.
The second assumption is that Zechariah and Elizabeth conceived their son at that time.
The third assumption is that their son John was born exactly nine months later, on June 24, which was the summer solstice on the Julian calendar.
The fourth assumption is that the Messiah was conceived when John was exactly six months through gestation, on March 25, the spring equinox.
The fifth assumption is that Jesus was in gestation exactly nine months from March 25 to December 25, which happens to be the winter solstice, when people throughout the northern hemisphere had for centuries celebrated the resurgence of the sun!
During the Middle Ages, Advent and Nativity became increasingly popular throughout Christian Churches, even surpassing austere, sacrificial and penitential Lent, and Easter, perhaps because the Christians wanted to enliven their winters. And Jesus had not returned in glory, so perhaps Christians wanted to look back fondly to His Nativity and celebrate it.
New Christians from barbarian tribes of Europe were adding their pre-Christian winter festivities of the Yule month, to enhance the Feast.
In the 1500s, the protestants in some nations challenged the seemingly excessive celebrations of the Feast of the Nativity because much of it had no connection to the Christ Mass or the Savior’s birth and was merely hedonist licentiousness. Gluttony and drunkenness were frowned upon as unChristian.
In England, Puritans condemned all celebration on Christ’s day as pagan. When they came into political power in Britain, Parliament outlawed the Feasts of the Nativity, Easter, Pentecost and the saints.
Eventually the Puritans lost control of Parliament, the British monarchy was restored and celebration of the Nativity of God resumed in England. Christmas was celebrated in Anglican churches, but in homes was feasting, drinking and partying with no reference to the Incarnation of the Saving God. This is what we read of in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.
Immigrants to this land have brought their differing Nativity traditions, customs and attitudes. Catholic Spaniards and French brought beautiful, elaborate Christ Mass liturgies and customs from their motherlands.
The Puritans continued to obey their ban on the Nativity Feast in the colonies of New England into the 1800s! In Boston, December 25 was an ordinary workday until 1856, and public schools were open on the Solemnity of the Nativity until 1870! Factory workers and students were disciplined for absence. But by the end of the 1800s, all states had granted legal holiday status to December 25.
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Advent customs & traditions:
In this season, we see purple used in clergy vestments, tabernacle veils and altar cloths. Purple is a color that was reserved for use by royalty in ages past, so in Advent we use it to symbolize the coming of our King. On the Third Sunday of Advent, ‘Gaudete’ Sunday, the vestments may be rose-colored to symbolize our hope for the coming of Jesus.
The Church emphasizes the penitential aspect of this season by recommending sparse decoration in churches and by legislating that instrumental music should not be used, except to sustain congregational singing that we don’t sing the Gloria and we don’t have nuptial Masses. We are in a kind of liturgical ‘fast,’ which makes the joyful celebration of the ChristMass that much more ‘powerful’ by the contrast with the lean and muted season of Advent.
Advent wreath:
The custom of hanging an advent wreath in one’s home began with Lutherans in eastern Germany in the early 1500s, adapting a pagan Yule month tradition to mark the four Sundays of Advent season. Germans had for centuries burned special candles, bonfires and Yule logs at the end of November and December as the darkness of winter descended on them and their world became colder. A wreath of evergreen branches wrapped into a circle was hung from a ceiling rafter or placed on a table. The circular shape of the wreath may be an ancient pagan symbol of the cyclical nature of the seasons, and may represent the path of the sun in the sky.
Four candles, three purple and one pink, are fastened to the wreath to mark the four Sundays of Advent. The three purple candles symbolize penance, preparation, and sacrifice. The pink candle, lit on Gaudete Sunday, symbolizes hope.
The large, white candle may, like the old Yule log, have represented the dying sun come back to life at the winter solstice. Of course, Christians light the Christ candle in the center of the wreath on the Feast of the Nativity to represent the coming of the Light into the world to dispel the darkness and light our way.
Other German Christians liked the custom, and eventually the Catholics adopted it. Who wouldn’t want to decorate their homes with fragrant evergreen wreaths and candles when stuck indoors during a harsh winter, awaiting the solstice and the Feast of the Nativity? The wreath tradition was brought to this country by German immigrants, and it was popularized in the mid-1900s.
Another old custom which persists, in a way, to this day is the writing of letters by children to Jesus or Saint Nicholas and leaving them on window sills on December 5, preceding Saint Nicholas’ feast day, for Saint Nicholas or an angel to take to Heaven. Children in some countries write letters to Saint Nicholas, some to SinterKlaas, some to mythical Father Christmass and Santa Claus.
A more sensible Advent custom is that of making an Advent calendar designed for the spiritual season of 22-28 days, in which each day is marked with a goal toward personal conversion or a work of mercy in preparation for the Lord’s arrival.
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acknowledgements:
I am indebted to Mike Aquilina, Helen Walker, Dr Marcellino D’Ambrosio, Brother John Raymond of the Monks of Adoration in the Venice Diocese, Robert Cornelison of Fordham University, the Magnificat daily devotional guide, and books such as The Catechism of the Catholic Church, Father John Hardon’s Catholic Dictionary, Catholic Customs and Traditions, by Greg Dues and Thomas Tally’s book on the origins of the liturgical year.