Category Archives: Advent

On Dating Christmas

Advent, Apologetics, Christmas, History, Scripture, , , ,

Each Christmas a friend of mine sends me a text wishing me “seasons greetings”.  He casts a wide net capturing the “spirit” of the season wishing me a “Merry Christmas, Merry Natalis Solis Invictus, and Happy Kwanza” and, just in case, throws in a “Happy Festivus” for the rest of us.  Rather than continually engaging him each year, I now simply respond “Merry Christmas…and as for the rest, I have already aired my grievances.”  His point is rather clear—Christmas is just as made up as the rest of them.  It is an indirect attack on the historicity of Christ, but also a direct attack on the dating of Christmas as December 25th.  Having addressed the indirect attack in other posts, it is the direct attack I would like to address in this post.

The Problem of Accuracy

One of the problems we must admit right away is related to the accuracy of the date.  The Church Fathers are not unanimous in the dating of Christmas and very few mention December 25th.  It is not until much later that the Church selected that date to mark the Solemnity of Christmas.  Part of the problem is the abundance of calendars used in the ancient world.  The two most commonly ones that were used Egyptian and the Julian Calendar.  The Jews also used a calendar based on the lunar cycles (354 days) rather than on the solar cycle (365).  These were considered obsolete when the Gregorian Calendar was adopted in the 1500s (although the Orthodox still mark Christmas on January 7th which is the equivalent to December 25th on the Julian Calendar).  The point is that our December 25th is not the same day as the December 25th using the Julian Calendar, which was the one in use in the Roman Empire at the time of Christ.  We have to admit that there is a “translation” problem that makes the exacting dating difficult.

This does not mean, however, that the selection of December 25th is arbitrary and meaningless.  But this is to yield to the sentiment that somehow accuracy and meaning are synonymous.  Just because we cannot accurately calculate the date of Christ’s birth doesn’t mean December 25th is arbitrary.  In fact, it is the most fitting date to celebrate the historical reality of Christ’s nativity because it preserves the meaning of Christ’s birth.

There is a principle at play in the discussion that, in our Big Bang/Evolutionary ideal, is often forgotten.  Nothing within Creation is arbitrary.  Even the tiniest activity is charged with meaning, not because of the Butterfly Effect, but because of Christ.  To put it in biblical terms, “in Him were created all things in heaven and on earth…all things were created through Him and for Him” (Col 1:16, emphasis added).  At the center of Creation, at the center of history, is Christ.  All of Creation points to Him and all of Creation finds its meaning in Him.  Christ really is the answer.  He is, to use Aristotelian terms, the Final Cause of each thing in Creation.  This was His reason for creating so many natural images so that He might use them to describe Himself and His Kingdom. 

The Fittingness of December 25th

With this in mind, why is December 25th fitting then?  To grasp this we must go back to “the beginning”.  Many of the Jews and ancient Christians believed that the Sun was created on March 25th.  It is assumed that when God created the Sun to “separate day from night” (Gn 1:14), this separation was equal.  This only occurs on two dates throughout the year—the two equinoxes in the Spring and the Fall.  The date for the Vernal Equinox in the Julian Calendar was March 25th.  God chose the fourth day for the creation of the sun because it was the day in which the “sun of righteousness” (Mal 4:2) was to come into the world.  Its creation is for the sake of God Himself entering Creation.  This entering into Creation occurred when the Holy Spirit overshadowed His Mother at the Annunciation.  It is for this reason To mark Christ’s conception the Church celebrates the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25th .

As an aside, March 25th is also believed by many Church Fathers to be the day Christ died.  “On the third day, He rose again” and man was re-made.  Again, we see the parallel with Creation.  The Sun is created on the 4th day and then “on the third day” (Day 6) man is first made.  This only seems like a stretch when we forget the principle articulated above.  If all things really were made for Christ, then this is exactly what you would expect.

If Christ was conceived on March 25th, then it would be reasonable to celebrate His birth nine months later on December 25th.  This is the reason for the December 25th celebration.  In support of this date we also have the witness of nature itself.  “The true light which has come into the world” (Jn 1:9), comes right after the Winter Solstice, when the amount of light coming into the world from the Sun begins to increase.  December 25th is most certainly fitting.

The three Wise Men knew all of this.  This is why they followed the Star.  They knew nature points to the True King.  The choice of December 25th is a defense of the primacy of Christ, not just over Solis Invictus, but over all of Creation.  We too would be wise to pay attention to this principle.

Praying to the Lord of the Harvest

Advent, Church, Church Fathers, Fasting, Holy Orders, Women's Ordination, , , , , ,

On the first Saturday of Advent, the Church chooses as the gospel Matthew’s account of the commissioning of the Apostles.  After taking to heart the lost souls around Him, He demands that His disciples beg God to send more laborers into the fields.  He then empowers the Apostles and commands them to go out into the world to continue His mission of redemption (c.f. Mt 8:35-10:3).  The implications are obvious.  There are many lost souls that can only be saved through the continuing authoritative mission of the Apostles.  But this mission only continues through the prayers of all Christ’s disciples for more Bishops and Priests.

This interpretation is by no means novel.  The Church has always understood what Our Lord was telling us to do.  Nevertheless, in times of vocational crisis, there is a tendency, rather than trusting in God’s way of doing things, to look for human solutions.  Thus, we find ourselves discussing doing away with celibacy or adding women to the ranks of the ordained as human solutions to the problem.  But ultimately the “vocations crisis” is a crisis of faith in that we do not trust in God’s promise to send faithful Bishops and Priests.  We do not have them because we do not ask.

One might immediately object to what I just said.  There are plenty of people who pray for vocations.  While it is true that I have no idea how many people pray for vocations regularly, I do know that the Church has official periods of supplication for Priests that practically go unnoticed.  I am, of course, speaking of Ember Days. Ember Days are the ways in which the Church fulfills Our Lord’s command to pray for more harvesters.

The Ember Days

The Quatuor Tempora or Ember Days, are four periods of prayer and fasting (if you want to know how to fast, read this previous entry) that the Church has set aside for each of the four Ecclesiastical seasons.  Ember Days begin are marked by three days (Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday) of penance by which the Church, especially through fasting, consecrates to God each of the Seasons of the Year.  The practice sprung out of the habit of Israel to fast in the fourth, fifth, seventh and tenth month (c.f. Zech 8:18-19).  The practice, at least according to Pope St. Leo the Great, has been a part of the Church’s year since the times of the Apostles.

The Advent Ember Days, like each of the other three, have as their object gratitude and supplication for the harvest.  According to Leo the Great, the Advent Ember Days, falling in the time of the year where all the fruits of the earth had been collected, would mark a time of “joyful fasting” (Zech 9:19) in thanksgiving for the harvest. 

The connection to the earthly harvest also has a further meaning connected to Our Lord’s mention of the great harvest of souls.  The Church through an act of penance would pray the Lord of the harvest to send worthy Ministers who are holy and true Shepherds during the Ember Days.  The faithful would join the Church in her intention by offering their own acts fasting.  In short then the Ember Days are special days in which the Church as a whole fasts and prays together for vocations. 

The fall into disuse of the Ember Days and the current vocation crisis are hardly coincidental.  The prayer of the Church is always far more pleasing and efficacious than individual prayer.  As the Ember Days of Advent come upon us tomorrow, let us join the Church in this act of gratitude for the faithful Shepherds among us and beg the Lord to send us more.  As Dom Prosper Gueranger exhorts us, the Ember Days are a great way to “keep within ourselves the zeal of our forefathers for this holy season of Advent.  We must never forget, that although the interior preparation is what is absolutely essential for our profiting by the Coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ, yet this preparation could scarcely be real, unless it manifested itself by exterior practices of religion and penance.”  Individually chastened by our fasts, let us then join the Church in these Ember Days and implore the Lord of the Harvest to send out more laborers.     

The End Times and the Anti-Mary

Advent, Devils, End Times, Family, Mary, Spiritual Warfare, The Life of Jesus, , , , ,

Christians of every age have wondered whether they were living in the End Times.  Each of these ages had their own reasons to believe that Our Lord’s return was imminent.  In that regard our own age is no different.  But our times are unique in a very specific way, one that is not often spoken of.  The Second Coming of Christ will be like a negative photographic image of the first.  He came in weakness, He will come in power.  He came in silence, He will come with trumpet blasts.  He came as Redeemer, He will come as Judge.  He came as Lamb, He will return as Lion.  Just as this principle of photographic negative applies to the New Adam, it also applies to the role the New Eve will play as well.  And in this, we find signs that the end is near.

Mary’s First Coming

The future Queen of Heaven and Earth was the Queen of the Hidden Life during her earthly sojourn.  She “kept all these things in her heart” rather than shouting them to the housetops.  The only time she “let loose” of both her mission and her Son’s was in the privacy of her cousin Elizabeth’s home.  And even after the Resurrection she remained in prayer, preferring not to speak and to avoid any chance that a cult were to rise up around the Mother of God.  She who was a true wonder of the world, lived in the temple of her heart in ancient Ephesus while the pagans streamed to the Temple of the virgin goddess Diana in that same city.  She was not only humble, but silent with only a single spiritual counsel—“do whatever He tells you.”

As Queen and Universal Mother she has not abandoned her children.  Throughout the ages she has left her throne in Heaven and appeared to her children to give them an urgent message.  These apparitions have been a regular part of the life of the Church over the past millennium.  In the last few centuries however, they have grown in both frequency and publicity. She is no longer the silent maiden, but the regal Mother voicing her concern for her children.  When we view this in light of the “photographic negative” principle, this makes sense.  If she played a primary, albeit silent, role in the First Coming, we should only expect that she play a more visible and vocal role in the Second Coming.  And the messages of her apparitions seem to suggest that the time is short.  We may not know how short is short, but it is safe to say that she is clearing the way for His second Advent.

Reading the signs of the times and seeing the Marian apparitions in this light means we should treat the messages, especially at Fatima where the most visible public miracle ever occurred, with the utmost seriousness.  But there is another sign that is related to this that ought to give us pause.

The Spirit of the Anti-Mary

We know that one of the signs of the Second Coming is the reign of the Antichrist.  We aren’t told when but we are told how long he will reign (42 months).  Throughout history there have been types of the Antichrist that gave us a glimpse of just how dark those days will be.  But they have all passed.  Eventually the true antichrist will rise and I would like to suggest that this eventuality is closer than we may think.

The Devil is the great ape of God, trying to “be like god” and mimic what He does.  The Antichrist will be his greatest facsimile of the true Christ, for he will dupe many people into thinking he is the real thing.  But being the great counterfeiter, we should expect that he will try to replicate the life of the true Christ is every way, but especially in a specific way—by having the anti-Mary precede him.

Who can doubt that the spirit of the anti-Mary is already rearing its ugly head among us under the guise of feminism?  But only Mary is the true feminist, receptive in everything God has to give.  Feminists reject femininity as receptivity and try to seize everything for themselves, including masculinity.  The “handmaiden of the Lord” was the most liberated woman who ever lived, finding freedom in living out her feminine calling.  The anti-Mary must liberate herself from even her own feminine nature, ending in absolute slavery.  Mary modestly hid her beauty behind a mantle and veil, anti-Mary wears little except a pink cat hat on her head.  Mary humbly “ate the bread of dependence” provided by Joseph at Nazareth and was filled, anti-Mary is gluten free and looks out only for number one.  Mary loved God and submitted to Him in her Jewish religion, anti-Mary hates God for making them a woman and sees religion only as a weapon in the hands of oppressors.  Mary prophetically whispered, “this is my body given for You,” anti-Mary shouts “my body, my choice.”  They speak only of women’s rights, but Mary speaks of a woman’s unique duties.

The diabolical fraud has been perpetrated, clearing the way for the reign of the anti-Mary.  And this is what makes our times utterly unparalleled.  Other times may have had their shadows of the Antichrist, only our age is animated by the spirit of the anti-Mary.  It is this uniqueness that suggests we may be entering into the time of the final battle.  There is a great battle being waged between Mary and the anti-Mary and we must fly to the foxhole of her mantle.  It was with this in mind that St. Louis de Montfort spoke of the Apostles of the End Times as having a particularly Marian spirit and devotion.  It is also why Our Lady has reminded us that even though the anti-Mary is seemingly everywhere, that, in the end her Immaculate Heart will triumph.

The Myth of Santa Claus

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As children enter their second decade, they enter a yuletide game of cat and mouse with their parents who are trying to stretch out their belief in Santa Claus.  As they grow wiser in the ways of the world, learn how to search order history on Amazon and find their parents’ secret hiding place, it is only a matter of time before the ruse is up.  Or, at least, a ruse is what it feels like.  Parents must grow increasingly clever and deceptive as their child’s hunger for the truth of Santa Claus grows.  Labeling the whole thing a lie, many parents opt to forgo the visit from Father Christmas in order to remain truthful with their children.  Others argue that it is no lie, only a myth meant to convey the deep meaning of Christmas to children.  Just in time to make or break Christmas, we will enter the debate.

A word first about myths.  In an age where we are besieged by facts, there is a tendency to equate facts with truth.  Truth, while it may include facts, transcends mere facts.  It is the conformity of thought with reality.  Reality, in order to be explained and understood, often requires more than mere facts.  This is where myth comes in.

Because of our fascination with facts, we see myths, because they are “made up”, as lies.  They may be, as CS Lewis once said, “lies breathed through silver,” but lies nonetheless.  But myths are not fabricated prevarications but word-sacraments that act as signs pointing to some aspect of reality that would otherwise remain obscure.  The best myths are like flashlights focusing their beams on truth.  But myths can also be false.  In fact, those myths that act as clear signs pointing to something obscure in reality we would call true myths.  Those whose signs point away from the truth or remain so obscure themselves we would call false myths.

The Myth of Santa Claus

Santa Claus then, just because he is made up, is not necessarily a lie. He may be a myth.  But if he is a myth then the question really is whether the myth is a true or a false one.  More to the point, what does Santa Claus as a sign point to?

To answer this we must begin with a little history of the myth itself. His association with the real St. Nicholas of Myra is well known.   But in truth he is only remotely associated with the cult of the 3rd Century saint.  The real St. Nicholas was known for his generous gift giving especially bestowing upon poor families dowries for their girls to get married.  The cult around him emerged as Christians sought his intercession for large purchases and when getting married, some even choosing his feast day, December 6th, as the day to exchange their nuptial vows.  Other than the obvious fact that he is a Christian, there is nothing in his history nor in his cult specifically that would associate him with Santa Claus.

The connection with Christmas came when the Episcopal Minister Clement Moore wrote a poem in 1822 entitled “An Account of a Visit with St. Nicholas” or, as we know it today, “The Night Before Christmas.”  Sentimentality aside, when one reads the poem you get the sense that the children who had hung their stockings in anticipation of St. Nicholas’ arrival (perhaps related to the saint himself filling shoes with gifts in his lifetime) got more than they bargained for when Santa Claus appeared as “chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf” with a sleigh full of toys, eight reindeer and magical powers that allow him to travel up and down the chimney.  Advertisers loved Moore’s Santa Claus because thanks to other literary giants of the day like Washington Irving, gift giving became an important part of Christmas.  By the 1840s stores were already using his image to advertise Christmas sales.  Stores began to have men dress up like Santa Claus so that children could visit and tell him what gifts they would like while their parents shopped for said gifts. 

Treating Santa Claus as a myth leaves us with the conclusion that he is not a mythical representation of St. Nicholas of Myra.  It seems that his creation myth repudiates the simple and holy saint, rejecting him as simply not enough.  He obscures rather than makes us better understand the great saint and the intercessory power of saints in general.  Saints do intercede for us and get us things that we ask for, but they are not supply chain experts who manufacture the things themselves nor do they employ little elves as their helpers.  They distribute God’s manifold gifts.  Rather than determining whether we have been naughty or nice to bestow gifts upon us, they give according to whether the gifts themselves will make us naughty or nice.  In fact the True Gift of Christmas came to save the naughty and not the nice who had no need of Him.  Rather than using magic to travel up and down chimneys or ride in a sleigh of magical reindeer, they are “like the angels” and share in the powers of Christ’s resurrected body.  Rather than residing in the North Pole, they look upon the face of God in heaven. 

In short, a child looking upon Santa Claus would conclude very little about St. Nicholas or saints in general.  But perhaps the myth is not really about St. Nicholas but about Christmas itself.  After all, St. Nicholas is really a sign himself pointing to Christ.  Unfortunately, this explanation, while fulfilling our nostalgic longings, also falls flat.

The problem is not so much a battle between material versus spiritual gifts.  When Israel was a child, God bestowed material benefits on them in order to point towards the spiritual gifts He wanted to give them.  The Divine Pedagogy uses things that are seen to reveal things unseen.  Likewise the problem is not that it is only for children.  Signs pass away as one approaches the thing signified.  If we reverse this relationship and start with the thing signified we can then see why Santa Claus is a false myth.

No child will make the connection between Santa Claus and Christ.  Parents have to tell them.  But the meaning of a true myth as a sign should be obvious, otherwise it is a terrible sign.  Sure, the parents may have to remind them, but the sign ought to be enough.  The fact that we struggle to “keep Christ in Christmas”, but have no trouble “keeping Santa Claus in Christmas” shows that the myth has eclipsed the truth.  As further evidence, once the sign passes away and gives way to the thing signified, the children have gotten the message loud and clear: Christmas is about giving gifts.  Otherwise, the gift giving would cease (or at least the felt obligation of it) once the person grasped that Christmas was about the gift of Christ.

Is Santa Claus a Lie?

And this is why Santa Claus ultimately is not just a false myth but also a lie.  True myths may be confused for facts, but they never fabricate the facts.  Fabricating facts is simply a nice way to say lying.  Parents must make up the fact of gifts under the tree to support the myth of Santa Claus.  But, as we said, a true myth does not need the support of facts.  Its truth stands on its own foundation.  Intuitively parents know this because they universally speak about whether their children know the “truth about Santa Claus” or not.  No one speaks of a true myth in those terms.

But what’s the harm?  Maybe it isn’t true, but it creates a nice holiday that everyone seems to enjoy.  No child ever felt betrayed by his parents for playing the Santa Claus game.  But this ignores the fact that lies are wrong, not just because they harm other people, but because they are an offense against God. 

Lies ultimately are an attempt on our part to alter reality.  We try to speak or act a different reality into existence.  They are an offense against God then because they usurp His right to determine reality.  This is why a false myth like this is also a lie—it tells a falsehood about reality and tries to make reality other than it really is.  God could very easily have given St. Nicholas the power to visit homes each year.  As proof of this, St. Nicholas brings gifts of healing and consolation to thousands of people who apply his manna, the mysterious substance that seeps from his bones every year and has been the source of many miraculous cures.  But He didn’t do it because, ultimately, it wasn’t for the benefit on mankind.  If we trace the fruit that has come from Santa’s arrival in the 19th Century, we must admit that He was right.     

The Gift of Advent

Advent, Christmas, Fatherhood, marriage, Sacraments, The Life of Jesus, Theology, , , ,

In what became an international best-seller, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Pope, St. John Paul II summarized Original Sin as “above all” an attempt “to abolish fatherhood”.  When Adam and Eve seized the apple from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they didn’t just disobey, but epically failed to see that God in His fatherly love was offering everything they would ever need or want as a pure gift.  Instead of receiving the gift they attempted to appropriate it for themselves.  They wanted to “be like God” on their own terms and not as beneficiaries of the Divine Goodness.  That Satan tempted them to do so should not be all that surprising because these are the same conditions under which he too fell.  Rather than receive the gift from God, he decided he would grasp his greatness as his own.  Satan would “be like God”, but only on his own terms.

There is a flip side of this that can easily be overlooked but is something worthy of deeper reflection.  The abolition of fatherhood really comes about not by outright denial of it, but through a usurpation of sonship.  Lucifer was not so foolish as to think he could somehow eclipse God.  Instead he thought he could eclipse the Son by usurping His throne and ruling with God.  Lucifer’s transition to Satan was when he identified himself as only begotten son and not creature.  Thinking that equality with God was something to be grasped (c.f. Phil 2:6) rather than received, he, according to St. Bernard of Clairvaux, tried to “usurp a similitude with the Most High that was the Son’s by right.”

“You are My Beloved Son…”

Sonship, St. Paul’s great ode to the humility of Christ tells us, is not something that can be grasped but something that the Son must share with us.   Even the Son Himself does not grasp His Sonship but receives it from the Father.  And all that belongs to Him as Son, He gives to us by way of participation.  The Son did not shed His humanity when He ascended on high but instead took it with Him to affirm that mankind was made for this.

Notice that I didn’t say that the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us simply to redeem us.  That He did, but to stop there is to confuse the means with the end.   God redeems us so that He can give Himself to us.  This is a recurring theme in Scripture, but nowhere does it shine forth more brightly than in St. Paul’s canticle to marriage in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Ephesians (5:21-33).  In it, the Apostle to the Gentiles draws an analogy between the marital relationship of man and woman with Christ’s relationship to the Church.  Marriage is a Sacrament precisely because this analogy is real.

But St. John Paul II says that we can actually illuminate Christ’s relationship with the Church by looking at marriage (see Theology of the Body, 18 August 1982).  In other words, he suggests that we reverse the analogy by closely examining the spousal imagery.  The Divine Bridegroom wishes to remove every imperfection in his spouse by cleansing her in the “bath of water with the word” so that she is without spot or wrinkle or any blemish (Eph. 5:26-27).  This nuptial bath is an obvious allusion to Baptism, but that is just the beginning.  What the Bridegroom really wants is his bride to be spotless, so that He who is also spotless can unite with her in a one flesh communion (Eph 5:30-32).

The Great Mystery

Within marriage the gift that the spouses give to each other is first and foremost themselves—“I take you…”  So too with Christ.  In Baptism, He claims each one of us for Himself and says “I take you…”  Yes, He gifts us with the fruits of redemption, but the real Gift is Himself.  As John Paul II puts it in one of his addresses from the Theology of the Body “In him, We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses…’ (Eph 1:7). In this manner men who through faith accept the gift offered to them in Christ, really become participants in the eternal mystery, even though it works in them under the veil of faith. According to the Letter to the Ephesians 5:21-33, this supernatural conferring of the fruits of redemption accomplished by Christ acquires the character of a spousal donation of Christ himself to the Church, similar to the spousal relationship between husband and wife. Therefore, not only the fruits of redemption are a gift, but above all, Christ himself is a gift. He gives himself to the Church as to his spouse” (15 September 1982).  It seems as if the Saintly Pontiff, despite his Thomistic roots, thinks that the Incarnation would have happened even if man had no sinned.  God, for all eternity, planned to become one flesh with mankind.

If we take this theme and shine its light on the Parable of the Prodigal Son then we can begin to examine our own relationship to this truth.  The younger son wants to appropriate his sonship and take his father’s gifts by fiat.  But when “he comes to his senses” and returns contritely to the father, he bestows the gifts of sonship on him.  The older son on the other hand also rejects his sonship.  He is simply looking for his father to provide for his needs, like those who go to God only for redemption.  That is non-trivial of course, but to stop there is to never see the generosity of the father who says “everything I have is yours.”  It is servile rather than filial.

If divine sonship cannot be grasped but only received then we ought to dedicate this Advent to meditating upon this truth.  We should study the life of Our Lord and learn from Him so that we might take our place with Him upon His throne.  If we truly are sons in the Son, then we need to act like it.   Likewise we would do well to prepare ourselves for His second coming when He will initiate the Wedding Feast of the Lamb by allowing Him to cleanse us of every spot and blemish.  Light your lamps and go out and meet Him!   “Jesus is the reason for the season” indeed.

The Waiting Game

Advent, Eucharist, Fasting, Sacraments, Spiritual Life

In his most celebrated and enduring work, A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens tells the story of a miserable old miser named Ebenezer Scrooge.  The protagonist is visited by three ghosts, each set on infusing into his heart the “Christmas spirit.”  As frightful as the experience might be, many of us would wholeheartedly welcome the arrival of a specter if it meant being given the Christmas spirit. In hopes of being caught up in the spirit, we try shopping for the perfect gift.  We may turn to Christmas music, but we can only listen to Feliz Navidad so many times (once) before our hearts grow cold.  We might blame the “culture” for the secularization of Christmas, but no matter what we do, the Christmas spirit remains elusive. What if, the problem was something else?  What if we struggle to get into the Christmas spirit because we never “get into” the spirit of Advent?

As the Latin derivation of the name suggests (Adventus for Coming), Advent is a period of preparation for the celebration of the Feast of the Incarnation on Christmas. Although it has been observed to varying degrees and varying lengths of time throughout Church history, it has always been viewed as a “little” Lent because it is a period of spiritual preparation through the disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. It was “little” both because the duration of time is shorter (4 weeks vs 40 days) and because the Church does not command the same rigor as Lent. Its “littleness” has always been the reason why it is my favorite liturgical season and why it offers an excellent time for those of us who might grow weary and lose intensity during Lent or even suffer from a little spiritual ADD.

What Are You Waiting For?

Advent is a season of waiting.  Throughout history, God’s people have always waited for Him to fully reveal Himself. The Incarnation may have happened in a specific time and place, but it touches every time and place.  When God pitched His tent among us, time and eternity met—now each moment touches God’s eternal Now.  The season of Advent may end at Christmas—a day that marks the birth of Christ—but Christmas properly understood is meant to mark the three comings of Christ. First, there is His coming in the flesh in the cave in Bethlehem. Second, there is His coming in grace and the Eucharist to us in the here and now. Finally, it is preparation for His second coming when He will judge mankind. Christmas, like all the Christian mysteries, has a threefold meaning in the past, present and future. You cannot separate any of the three elements from the other two without doing harm to the meaning of Christmas. “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.”

This threefold meaning of Christmas is what ultimately helps us to “keep Christ in Christmas” by protecting it from simply being a day we remember some past event.  We see it not only as an event in the past that put the world on a different trajectory, but an event that touches each of us individually today and ultimately determines our individual future.  The Christmas spirit is a living spirit.  But we must prepare for it by following the steady path laid out in Sacred Scripture.  The Church borrows the words of the prophets in the Advent liturgies not so much to show they were right, but to make their fervent expressions of longing our own. God’s word is living and active and never returns to Him empty (c.f. Heb 4:12, Is 55:11). We must wrap our hearts around His words through the prophets and make them our own expressions. Advent should be a time in which Scripture comes alive for us, especially by dedicating more time to prayer and study.

Are You Awake?

It is not just the words of prophets that form our Advent, but even the cosmos bids us to “stay awake” as the night grows longer.  It is not until the “Light of the World” enters on December 25th that the days will begin to get longer again.  The Christmas spirit only comes when we have allowed the spirit of vigilance to animate our Advent.  Advent allows us to give expression to that deep yearning for God that we all experience. That desire is so deep within us and such a natural part of our daily existence that we often become drowsy.  Advent offers us both the opportunity, and specific graces, to become vigilant.  In fact we will likely find that we are more vigilant throughout the rest of the year because we have paid our dues in Advent.

Fasting while we await the arrival of the Bridegroom is also a key aspect of Advent. Assuming that His disciples would fast (Mt 6:16), He won many graces for them when He Himself fasted in the desert.  Fasting not only helps us to gain control over our passions, but when done properly actually makes our senses more alert.  This is why fasting from food is such a powerful spiritual practice.  Because food is necessary to life, the hunger we experience in going without, is felt at the core of our being. We give up what is necessary because we want the One Thing that is most necessary.

Advent and the Eucharist

Advent can also be a time in which we double-down on our devotion to the Eucharist.  The Eucharist ensures that Christmas Day is not merely symbolic. We truly receive what we have been preparing for, even if God shields our eyes under the appearance of bread and wine.  The entire purpose of all the season is to receive Christ in His fullness and permanently.  The Eucharist is the Sacrament that truly brings this about.  It is not only Christmas Day but the entire season of Advent that is protected from becoming a symbolic gesture by the Eucharist. Spending more time “keeping watch with Our Lord” for an hour of Adoration ought to be a key practice of Advent. Likewise, we should increase our frequency of Daily Mass attendance, asking for the grace to receive Our Lord more perfectly each time. The Eucharist has a gravitational force about it in that the more you receive Our Lord, the more you desire to receive Him again. There is no better way to make real the goal of Advent than by allowing Our Lord to bestow this gift upon us.

Running Through the Finish Line of Advent

Advent, Fasting, Prayer, ,

Within Church tradition, Advent has been viewed as a “little” Lent.  Lent, because it involved a prolonged period of preparation marked by the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and almsgiving.  “Little,” because it was a shorter time period (4 weeks vs 40 days) and because it lacked some of the rigor normally associated with Lent.  For many of us, despite the best of initial intentions, Advent has had any rigor at all.  The commercial trappings of Christmas can ensnare all of us to some degree, something we do not necessarily have to combat at Easter.  We may easily be tempted to give up and try again next year.  But there is still a week left in the season and the Church has the perfect prescription within her traditions to recoup some of the spiritual fruit that may have fallen off your Advent tree. It may be that Advent has been very good so far and you are looking for a way to stretch to gather the fruit from the top.  Either way, we can finish Advent by turning to the Church’s tradition of “little Advent.”

In the spirit of always acting with the end in mind, a brief reminder about the purpose of Advent.  All too often Advent and even Christmas can feel like a game of make believe.  We know that God has already come in the Incarnation.  We know that He is here in the Eucharist.  Sure we are awaiting His Second Coming in glory, but that is something that we are always waiting for.  Why do we need a special season of waiting?

It is precisely that reason that the Church gives us Advent leading up to the theophany of Christmas.  We may always be, as the embolism of the Mass says, waiting “in joyful hope for the coming of Our Savior.”  But Advent offers us a special time to focus solely on this waiting so as to stir up love in us and to awaken our otherwise dormant hope.  God’s promises really do come to fruition, not just “spiritually” but as history.  Not just once upon a time, but “in the first enrollment (of the census ordered by Caesar Augustus) when Quirinius was governor of Syria.”  God made good on His promise to be Emmanuel, God with us and He will continue until He has ransomed all of captive Israel.

This waiting is especially acute in Advent and ought to be our primary focus.  We do the things that waiting people do—pray, fast and give alms.

Prayer

Beginning on December 17th, the Church has traditional marked seven days with a series of special antiphons known as the O Antiphons.  These antiphons frame the Magnificat in each evening’s Liturgy of the Hours.  Not only are these antiphons tied to the official prayer of the Church, but are also well known to most of us as they comprise the verses of O Come, O Come Emmanuel.

Within the Liturgy of the Hours, antiphons are short verses that are sung (or recited) prior to and after the Psalm or Canticle that provide an interpretive key to the mystical meaning of the passage or the feast day.  This is what makes the O Antiphons perfect material to recharge or redeem Advent for us—they are short reflections that capture the meaning of the season.  The O Antiphons allow us to make present the expectation of Israel and ignite within us any aspect of hope that has lain dormant in our hearts.  And because they are appended onto the Magnificat, Mary’s great prayer of expectation and thanksgiving, they unite us with her as well.

Each of the Great Antiphons as some have called them, invokes the name of the Messiah under his various Old Testament titles and closes with a proper petition.  The medieval church masters say there are seven as a reminder of the miseries of our fallen condition; each of which the Messiah came to rescue us from.  On the first day we recall how it is the Wisdom from on high that can free us from ignorance.  On the second day, we beg for the coming Redeemer who will save us from eternal punishment.  On the third day, longing for our heavenly homeland, we invoke the promised Root of Jesse to hurry to us.  Imprisoned in sin and death, on the fourth day, we plead for the Key of David to unlock our chains and guard us.  Trapped in darkness, we beg for the Dayspring to enlighten our way on the fifth day.  Because we are enslaved under the terrible reign of the devil, we invoke the King of Nations on the sixth day.  Finally, separated from God, we invoke Emmanuel, God with us.  In short, each of the seven days we should meditate upon our fallen condition and God’s remedy as outlined by that day’s antiphon.

Fasting

At this stage of Advent, our longings ought to be felt, not just spiritually, but also bodily.  This is why the last week is a time to fast.  In teaching His disciples, Our Lord associates fasting with waiting for the Bridegroom (Mt 6:16).  It is a spiritual discipline that has fallen into disuse, but this last week of Advent offers a great time to get back into the practice.  Fasting allows us to truly experience longing for something we simply cannot live without.  By going without that which is necessary, namely food, we express our desire for the One Thing that is most necessary.  One would be hard pressed to come up with a better way to express the true meaning of the banquet most of us will partake of on Christmas Day than to have first fasted.  Feasts are only meaningful when we have had the experience of fasting.

Pope Benedict XVI often said we are living in the “already, but not yet.”  What he meant is that Christ has come and is with us really and truly, but we have not yet seen His glory.  It is in this spirit that fasting should always be accompanied by Daily Mass and reception of the Eucharist.  By having our actual hunger temporarily satisfied by the Bread of Life, we will again experience in our bodies the truth of what happens in our souls.

Almsgiving

In a season marked by a spirit of  giving, it seems that almsgiving plays a large part already.  But we often miss the real point of almsgiving which is to give until it hurts.  We do this not because we are nice, but because we love God and want to give in the way that He gives—until it hurts.  Almsgiving should always flow from a supernatural motive that is based on a love of God and a desire for Him to spread His love through us.

There is also the tendency to give only from our surplus, especially for those of us who have families to support.  It seems wrong to take from what the family needs in order to help another family.  This was my own thinking for many years until I came across a quote from Pope Francis in which he said “we would do well to ask ourselves what we can give up in order to enrich others by our poverty.”  What I took the Holy Father to be saying is that, and this is especially true for parents, we should look to see what we can sacrifice personally.  Then there is no conflict with our obligations to our children and spouses.  As a father I may not be willing to have one of my children forgo a thick winter coat, but as a man I might be willing to forgo one myself so that someone else can be warm.  By personally going without something of importance, I can enrich others.  These “others” include not just the direct beneficiary of your charity but your children as well who catch the spirit of sacrifice so inimical to our Christian spirit.

There is another aspect of our almsgiving that should be a focus during Advent which can be a time of great loneliness for many people.  The greatest poverty is often a lack of being loved.  Too often we are tempted to take a “I gave at the office” type mentality that removes us from actual contact with the poor.  Giving money is a good thing, but the problem with it is that, as Pope Benedict XVI said, we have a tendency to give too little of ourselves.  What the other person needs most is the knowledge that they are loved, a knowledge that is only acquired by our face to face contact with them.  Our almsgiving should not just be focused on meeting material needs, but should always leave the person spiritually enriched as well.  Christians are not social workers, but manifestations of Christ’s self-giving love in the world.

Entering the home stretch of our Advent journeys, there is still plenty of time to seize the graces God had planned from the beginning of time to give to us.  By returning to our Catholic roots—through Prayer, especially the great O Antiphons, fasting and almsgiving—we can with great joy welcome Christ the newborn babe.

Awaiting the Prince of Peace

Advent, Virtue,

Each day during Advent, the readings focus on the coming of the Messiah, a coming that promised to usher in among other things, peace.  It is a peace that is anticipated by the prophets (c.f. Is 11:8), proclaimed by the angels who announce His birth (Lk 2:14), part of His endowment to the Apostles at the Last Supper (Jn 14:27) and the first gift given the Apostles celebrating His Resurrection (Jn 20:19).  It is also a peace that, despite being part of our Christian inheritance, remains elusive for many of us.  As we prepare to welcome the Prince of Peace, it is an opportune time to reflect on peace as the characteristic mark of Christians.

Definition of Peace

St. Augustine offers us the best definition of peace as “the tranquility of order.” It is an effect of having order in one’s life.  As an effect, it is end in itself. While we all desire peace, no one desires it as a means to something else.  It is simply part and parcel to a happy life.

Although we might struggle to come up with a definition as succinct as St. Augustine, we all intuitively know that peace has something to do with order.  One of the main ways that people cope with anxiety is by seeking to manufacture order.  For example, many people will clean when they are anxious in an attempt to create order in their environment.  The disorder that is actually causing the anxiety will not actually go away, but they will find some semblance of peace in creating order where there was previously disorder, even if it is short-lived like most coping mechanisms.

Where Peace is Found

This definition of peace also helps us to more deeply understand a famous quote from Thomas Merton in which he says that, “we arenot at peace with others because we are not at peace with ourselves, and we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.”  Any attempt at socially engineering peace has the problem backwards, literally outside in.  Peace cannot come from the outside but must come from within because the well-ordered society only comes about through the work of well-ordered men.  It only comes about through the work of well-ordered Christian men, because only Christians have the capacity for true peace.

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The narratives of the Old Testament orbit around man’s futile attempts to create peace for himself.  It becomes obvious that it was a practical impossibility and that only a miraculous intervention by God could bring peace.  As fallen creatures we find that there is a war within our members (Romans 7:23).  In other words, we lack the internal order that creates tranquility.  We find that the “flesh lusts against the spirit” (Gal 5:17)—our passions and our wills are constantly battling for control.

The path to order is paved by the moral virtues, those habitual dispositions that enable us to bridle our passions and ride them to the Good with intensity.  But even that road is marked by sinkholes until we put on Christ and take our rightful share in His virtues.  The Prince of Peace exercised all the virtues so that we might finally be empowered to be delivered from this handicap once and for all.  In other words, by making peace with God, the Word Made Flesh also empowers us to make peace within ourselves.

First Obstacle: Sin

No amount of coping mechanisms can help us avoid the truth that we do not have peace because we have sin in our lives.  When I say this, it is not so much the actual sins that cause the disorder, but the reason we commit them.  In other words, the disorder is caused by our predominant fault, with our actual sins just being manifestations of this fault.  It is not enough to recognize that I get irrationally angry at my family, but I must get to the root cause of my anger.  Perhaps I do it because I crave comfort and do not want to be disturbed.  Or, perhaps I do it because I am vain and do not want to suffer the embarrassment of being opposed.  Or, perhaps in my pride I am attempting to control other people’s actions.  It is the same sin, blowing up at my family, but its root cause can be vastly different—pride, vanity or sensuality.  I may learn to control my anger, but until I attack the predominant fault of pride, vanity or sensuality, the disorder will remain.  This is why we always use the principle of overcoming evil with good—we are habitual creatures.  You can only overcome one habit (or vice) by replacing it with a new habit (virtue).

The Second Obstacle: Lack of Trust

Sin is not the only obstacle to peace.  In order to see this, we must avoid the pitfall of assuming that the solution to a lack of peace is to be more “spiritual” by looking upon the world with indifference.  Peace may not come from the outside, but the things that threaten our peace do.  This is why peace is only found in those who have a radical trust in God.  Life is full of difficulties and contradictions—in other words disorder.  That is a reality that cannot be merely overlooked.  But what is also real is that God uses those difficulties and contradictions to bring about what is good for us. God’s Providence is not merely universal, but personal.

Advent and peace go hand in hand.  Advent is a time to “stay awake” so that we can hurry up and wait.  It is a time to cultivate patience as we reflect on those things that threaten our peace and begin to see that God is at work in them.  This is not something we will see all at once, but only grow in this conviction with repeated experience.  He brought order out of chaos in creation and will do so in our re-creation in Christ.  Peace is distinctly Christian because it is a fruit of the Holy Spirit.  Like all fruit, not only does it have a certain sweetness to it, but it also is a sign of a mature tree.  May this Advent be a time of maturity so that we may welcome the Prince of Peace into our hearts in a most profound way.