The Significance of Advent According to the Church

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While some are rushing into Christmas as a joyful escape from a stressful year, there are still a few Catholics filling social media with Advent crafts and inspiration.  It may be easy to feel caught in the middle and want to do both.  Advent is an easy season to miss in the shuffle.  Though it may not seem to have the same gravity as its matching purple partner, Lent, it does!

The Church has long taught the importance of this season, intended to be penitential but joyfully so.  This brief overview of the Church’s teaching regarding the season should help Advent’s importance become more clear.  Hopefully, this will inspire the careful observation of these four weeks leading up to Christmas.

Advent in the Catechism

“Then the dragon was angry with the woman, and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring.” Therefore the Spirit and the Church pray: “Come, Lord Jesus,” since his coming will deliver us from the Evil One (CCC 2853).

The Catechism prefaces its section about Jesus’s incarnation with an explanation of Mary’s importance in salvation history (CCC 484-511).  As the quote above demonstrates, Mary makes Satan furious by bringing the Christ child into the world.  This woman, who would challenge the Prince of Darkness by her cooperation with salvation, needed to be a strong woman.  Advent is an opportunity to reflect on Mary in this light.

Starting at CCC 502, the Catechism provides a powerful reflection on Christ’s identity as revealed through Mary’s virginity.  It breaks down five important truths that follow from the teaching of Mary’s virginal conception of Christ.  This virginal conception:

  1. Makes God the “absolute” initiator of the Incarnation (503)
  2.  Establishes Jesus as the New Adam (made from nothing by God’s power, 504)
  3. Begins the welcoming of children of the New Covenant, adopted by the Holy Spirit (505)
  4. Proves Mary’s perfect, doubt-free faith (506)
  5. “At once virgin and mother” Mary is the perfect symbol of the Church, who is pure in her faithfulness to her spouse in Christ, but also the mother of the children of God (507)

These truths serve as Advent commentary on the journey of God’s people prior to the birth of Jesus.  It also captures the long wait of the Jews for their Messiah.  As the Catechism states:

When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this 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 (CCC 524).

Finally, it helps the faithful remember their need to humble themselves before their Savior, who humbled Himself for us.  “By celebrating the precursor’s birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to his desire: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease‘” (CCC 524).

Advent in the Liturgical Calendar

The Church’s liturgical calendar invites us into this reflection on Mary and Jesus by placing Marian feasts throughout the season.  The Immaculate Conception is observed early in Advent and throughout the entire month.  Later, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is welcomed with a burst of roses in the church.  There is also the Feast of Our Lady of Loreto, prompting us to consider the Holy Family’s home life.

The positioning of Advent at the beginning of the liturgical calendar and at the end of the secular one is significant.  It invites us to view the season as a time for reflection, renewal, and recommitment to better lives and habits for the year ahead of us.  Advent encourages us to view the approaching calendar year with our spiritual aspirations already in mind and heart.  This should help us shape the remainder of our life’s goals for the new year around our already determined spiritual commitments.

Advent in Name and Meaning

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI has written extensively about Christ’s infancy and the specialness of this time of year.  In this particular homily, he explores the way the word itself reveals the purpose of the season:

The essential meaning of the word adventus was: God is here, he has not withdrawn from the world, he has not deserted us. Even if we cannot see and touch him as we can tangible realities, he is here and comes to visit us in many ways.

Advent means “coming” and Pope Benedict reflects on how Christ’s coming gives us the opportunity to consider Him in each little moment of our lives.  Advent provides the basis for hope: we know our Lord is here for us, that He came for us, so we can structure our days in light of this happy fact.

He says that, unlike other parts of human life that prompt a hope that can end without fulfillment or leave nothing else to hope for afterward, Christ provides a constant light ahead in the Christian life:

Hope marks humanity’s journey but for Christians it is enlivened by a certainty: the Lord is present in the passage of our lives, he accompanies us and will one day also dry our tears. One day, not far off, everything will find its fulfilment in the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of justice and peace.

As the world rushes in a commercial Christmas and while some churches remain closed, let us honor the Church’s intention for this Advent season and make time to observe it.  The doors were all closed to Christ but He still came for us, so we must show up for Him.  May we all keep this hope present even in these difficult times.

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