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Sitaram · Site Admin Joined: 14 Sep 2005 Posts: 1079

Definition of Advent

1. The period including the four Sundays before Christmas. Advent
Sunday, the first Sunday in the season of Advent, being always the
nearest Sunday to the feast of St. Andrew (Now. 30).

2. The first or the expected second coming of Christ.

3. Coming; any important arrival; approach. "Death's dreadful
advent." (Young) "Expecting still his advent home." (Tennyson)

Origin: L. Adventus, fr. Advenire, adventum: cf. F. Avent. See
Advene.

http://www.easterbrooks.com/personal/calendar/rules.html#seasons

The seasons of the liturgical year begin with Advent, a time of
preparation for the Christmas season. The Christmas season
celebrates the birth of Jesus (on December 25) and continues until
the Baptism of Our Lord. This is followed by the first of two
periods of Ordinary Time, which continues until Ash Wednesday. Ash
Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a time of
penitence leading to the Paschal Triduum after the Lord's Supper on
Holy Thursday. The Triduum is the three days before Easter. Easter
Sunday marks the start of the Easter season, which continues as a
time of celebration until Pentecost Sunday. Pentecost Sunday marks
the start of the second period of Ordinary Time, which continues
until the Advent season begins again.

http://www.disciplesnow.com/catholic/html/article195.html

The time of Preparation for Christmas; a time of waiting for the one
who has already come, but is still coming in glory.

Advent marks the beginning of the Church year, falls at the end of
the calendar year and is in the midst of the Thanksgiving/Christmas
holiday seasons. During all the expectation and excitement, our
Church reminds us to wait and be watchful for the ways the Lord is
coming into our lives. It is a season of desire, passion and hope,
represented with violet purple vestments and decorations that are
symbolic of both repentance and joyful hope.

http://www.catholic.org/clife/advent/

The Church has her own special liturgical year and calendar in which
she presents again the history and unchanging mysteries of our
salvation, from Creation to the Second Coming, together with the
entire life of the Savior. The mysteries do not change, but we do. A
little older and wiser, we have the opportunity to review and renew
these mysteries. When the familiar feasts come around we grasp
something more about them because we have lived another year and
apply them more deeply to our lives. This is a year of formation,
like a school in which we, like pupils, learn faith, hope and
charity. We learn God's will and to do God's will. Each Sunday and
feast will present a special lesson to us for our daily living.
Advent is an especially lovely season and we can make great use of
it. With the beginning of the season of Advent, we begin a new
liturgical year. The First Sunday of Advent is therefore the
Church's "New Year's Day". In the Judeo-Christian tradition, Sunday
begin at sundown of the day before when the faithful celebrate First
Vespers. Advent begins the Christmas cycle.

Advent comes from the Latin word for an "arrival" or a "coming".
Advent means that the Lord is coming. Jesus Christ, our brother in
our humanity and our God in His divinity is about to arrive. But He
is comes to us in different ways. First, Jesus came to us at a
specific point in history at Bethlehem about 2000 years ago. But in
the Church's great feast of Christmas He mystically comes again.
Second, the Lord, Alpha and Omega, will come to judge the living and
the dead in the Second Coming. Third, the Redeemer comes to us in
grace. He speaks to us in our consciences, he comes to us in the
Eucharist and in the Word of God proclaimed. He arrives in the
person of the begger, the needy, the suffering, the oppressed. We
must be ready to receive and welcome Him when He comes, however He
comes.

Advent is a time of joy tinged with penance. Joy, because we can
imagine nothing more sweet than the Christ Child and His Mother
Mary's bliss at His coming to light. Penance because we must strive
to be properly disposed to receive so great a gift of His presence.
In the millennial tradition of the Church, we faithful have done
penance before great feasts. Christmas and Easter each have their
penitential seasons in anticipation, Advent and Lent. The liturgical
color used in the Latin Church for the liturgy during both Advent
and Lent is purple, a sign of penance. In some places people may see
blue used, which is done without the Church's approval. The Latin
Church also emphasizes the penitential dimension of the season by
directing the use of sparse ornaments in church and by legislating
that instrumental music should not be used, except to sustain
congregational singing. This is a kind of liturgical fast, which
makes the joy and celebration of Christmas all that much more
powerful by the contrast of the lean and muted season of Advent.
Advent is a time of great joy, because we look forward to the
beautiful feast of the Nativity, but it is joy stitched through with
somber and focused spiritual preparation by doing penance.

Preparation for Christmas is an important theme for Advent, but more
is involved. Advent gives us a vision of our lives as Christians and
shows us the possibilities of life.

The vision of life that Advent gives us is twofold; it looks back to
the first coming of Christ at Bethlehem, and it looks to the future
when Christ will come again. In the interval between these two
events we find meaning for our life as a Christian.

First we celebrate Christ-become-human. We view his life and
experience his presence as a human being in our history. Christ came
to show us what life can and should be. He gave us true and valid
principles by which we can live true and valid lives. But Jesus knew
that the human heart could not live in isolation. He formed the
Church around the concept of a people held together by love. In that
community we discover unlimited possibilities and meaning. Alone we
can do nothing. Together we find real meaning.

When Christ left this earth, he did not abandon us. He remains with
us in his Spirit, the Church, the sacraments, the Scriptures and
each other. He lives in community with us and keeps his vision of
life before us.

When Christ comes again, his presence will no longer be hidden
behind the signs and symbols of the liturgy or the words of the
Scriptures. His presence among us will be revealed in all its
fullness, a presence that will never end, a presence that will
perfect and complete our community.

This is the "greater significance" of Advent. In these few short
weeks we take in the sweeping panorama of time - from Christ's birth
to his Second Coming. The season of Advent brings us the magnificent
vision of life and hope for the future given to us by Christ.

Advent is our time to become more involved, more caught up in the
meaning and the possibilities of life as a Christian community. Thus
we are preparing not only for Christmas but also for Christ's Second
Coming. This means that when he comes again, we will be awake and
watchful. He will not find us asleep.

The word Advent derives from the Latin word meaning coming. The Lord
is coming. We may reflect that every year at this time we celebrate
his coming , so that in a sense we can lose the feeling of
expectancy and joyful anticipation, because at the end of the
season, everything seems to return to pretty much the same routine.
If that is the case, then our preparation may have been lacking and
we have therefore been robbed of much of the true meaning of this
season.

During Advent we recall the history of God's people and reflect on
how the prophecies and promises of the Old Testament were fulfilled.
This gives us a background for the present. Today we can reflect on
the past track record of God and so begin to understand what it
means to us now for the sake of what is to come, in our own future
and that of our world.

During the last eight days of Advent, it is useful to reflect on the
different titles given to the Lord who is to come. The titles are
Old Testament titles, here conferred on Jesus, showing he is the
promised Messiah.

Wisdom
St. Paul tells us that God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom.
He is saying that it is hard to imagine the Wisdom of God, who knows
all things, because God has created all things. This title of God
reminds us especially of the Book of Wisdom in the Old Testament - a
beautiful hymn in which wisdom is personified, and is active in the
world.

Adonai
A name for the Most High God, whose true name could not be uttered,
and of whom it was said that no-one could gaze on the face of God
and live. Adonai is the Lord of armies, who will march out to save
the people in battle.

Stock of Jesse
Jesse was the father of King David, and Jesus is a descendent of
David. >From David comes the association of Jesus as royal, of
David's line. Jesus inherits the throne of David, re-defining his
role as King of the Jews.

Key of David
Jesus is not simply a ruler descended from David, but a liberator, a
redeemer. This name echoes the mission of Jesus to bind and to
loose, a mission Jesus passes on to his disciples.

Rising Sun
The sun is a sign of God's creation, God's endurance, and a sign of
God's glory. God's glory outshines the sun, and will endure after
the sun and moon have failed. Psalm 84 describes God as the sun:

"For the LORD God is a sun and shield; he bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does the LORD withhold from those who walk uprightly."
(Psalm 84:11 NRSV)

King
God is the king above all kings, and the prophet Samuel is reluctant
to anoint a king for the Israelites as this will seem like a
rejection of God's rule. Pilate asks Jesus if he is a king; Jesus
answers indirectly, because his kingship does not accord with the
expectations of the Romans, the Jewish authorities, or even his
followers.

Emmanuel
The prophecy of Isaiah foretells a sign to be given by God: a virgin
will conceive and give birth to a son whom she will call Emmanuel: a
name which means God is with us. Jesus is the word made flesh, God
in the midst of the people.

The Origins of the 12 Days of Christmas

You're all familiar with the Christmas song, "The Twelve Days of
Christmas" I think. To most it's a delightful nonsense rhyme set to
music. But it had a quite serious purpose when it was written.

It is a good deal more than just a repetitious melody with pretty
phrases and a list of strange gifts.

Catholics in England during the period 1558 to 1829, when Parliament
finally emancipated Catholics in England, were prohibited from ANY
practice of their faith by law - private OR public. It was a crime
to BE a Catholic.

"The Twelve Days of Christmas" was written in England as one of
the "catechism songs" to help young Catholics learn the tenets of
their faith - a memory aid, when to be caught with anything in
*writing* indicating adherence to the Catholic faith could not only
get you imprisoned, it could get you hanged, or shortened by a head -
or hanged, drawn and quartered, a rather peculiar and ghastly
punishment I'm not aware was ever practiced anywhere else. Hanging,
drawing and quartering involved hanging a person by the neck until
they had almost, but not quite, suffocated to death; then the party
was taken down from the gallows, and disembowelled while still
alive; and while the entrails were still lying on the street, where
the executioners stomped all over them, the victim was tied to four
large farm horses, and literally torn into five parts - one to each
limb and the remaining torso.

The songs gifts are hidden meanings to the teachings of the faith.
The "true love" mentioned in the song doesn't refer to an earthly
suitor, it refers to God Himself. The "me" who receives the presents
refers to every baptized person. The partridge in a pear tree is
Jesus Christ, the Son of God. In the song, Christ is symbolically
presented as a mother partridge which feigns injury to decoy
predators from her helpless nestlings, much in memory of the
expression of Christ's sadness over the fate of
Jerusalem: "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! How often would I have sheltered
thee under my wings, as a hen does her chicks, but thou wouldst not
have it so..."

The other symbols mean the following:

2 Turtle Doves = The Old and New Testaments 3 French Hens = Faith,
Hope and Charity, the Theological Virtues 4 Calling Birds = the Four
Gospels and/or the Four Evangelists 5 Golden Rings = The first Five
Books of the Old Testament, the "Pentateuch", which gives the
history of man's fall from grace. 6 Geese A-laying = the six days of
creation 7 Swans A-swimming = the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit,
the seven sacraments 8 Maids A-milking = the eight beatitudes 9
Ladies Dancing = the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit 10 Lords A-
leaping = the ten commandments 11 Pipers Piping = the eleven
faithful apostles 12 Drummers Drumming = the twelve points of
doctrine in the Apostle's Creed

http://www.kerux.com/documents/KeruxV7N3A2.asp

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