Dom
Prosper Gueranger
The
History of Advent
The name Advent1
is applied in the Latin Church to that period of the year, during
which the Church requires the faithful to prepare for the celebration
of the Feast of Christmas, the anniversary of the birth of Jesus
Christ. The mystery of that great day had every right to the honour
of being prepared for by prayer and works of penance and, in fact, it
is impossible to state with any certainty when this season of
preparation (which had long been observed before receiving its
present name of Advent) was first instituted. It would seem, however,
that its observance first began in the West since it is evident that
Advent could not have been looked on as a preparation for the Feast
of Christmas until that Feast was definitively fixed to the
twenty-fifth of December: which was only done in the East towards the
close of the fourth century, whereas, it is certain, that the Church
of Rome kept the feast on that day at a much earlier period.
We must look upon Advent in two different lights. First, as a time of preparation, properly so called, for the birth of our Saviour, by works of penance, and secondly, as a series of Ecclesiastical Offices drawn up for the same purpose. We find, as far back as the fifth century, the custom of giving exhortations to the people in order to prepare them for the Feast of Christmas. We have two Sermons of Saint Maximus of Turin on this subject, not to speak of several others which were formerly attributed to Saint Ambrose and Saint Augustine, but which were probably written by Saint Cesarius of Aries. If these documents do not tell us what was the duration and the exercises of this holy season, they at least show us how ancient was the practice of distinguishing the time of Advent by special sermons. Saint Ivo of Chartres, Saint Bernard and several other Doctors of the eleventh and twelfth centuries have left us set sermons de Adventu Domini, quite distinct from their Sunday Homilies on the Gospels of that season. In the Capitularia of Charles the Bald, in 846, the Bishops admonish that Prince not to call them away from their churches during Lent or Advent under pretext of affairs of the State or the necessities of war, seeing that they have special duties to fulfil, and particularly that of preaching during those sacred times.
The oldest document in which we find the length and exercises of Advent mentioned with anything like clearness is a passage in the second book of the History of the Franks by Saint Gregory of Tours where he says that Saint Perpetuus, one of his predecessors, who held that See about the year 480, had decreed a fast three times a week from the feast of Saint Martin until Christmas. It would be impossible to decide whether Saint Perpetuus by this regulation established a new custom, or merely enforced an already existing law. Let us, however, note this interval of forty, or rather of forty-three days, so expressly mentioned and consecrated to penance, as though it were a second Lent, though less strict and severe than that which precedes Easter.
Later on we find the
ninth canon of the first Council of Mรขcon
held in 582 ordaining that during the same interval, between Saint
Martin’s Day and
Christmas, the Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, should be fasting
days, and that the Sacrifice should be celebrated according to the
Lenten Rite. Not many years before that, namely in 567, the
second Council of Tours had enjoined the monks to fast from the
beginning of December till Christmas. This practice of penance soon
extended to the whole forty days, even for the laity, and it was
commonly called Saint Martin’s
Lent. The Capitularia of Charlemagne, in the sixth book, leave us no
doubt on the matter, and Rabanus Maurus, in the second book of his
Institution of Clerics, bears testimony to this observance.
There were even special rejoicings made on Saint Martin’s
Feast, just as we see them practised now at the approach of Lent and
Easter.
The obligation of
observing this Lent which, though introduced so imperceptibly, had by
degrees acquired the force of a sacred law, began to be relaxed and
the forty days from Saint Martin’s
Day to Christmas were reduced to four weeks. We have seen that this
fast began to be observed first in France, but from there it spread
into England, as we find from Venerable Bede’s
History, into Italy, as appears from a diploma of Astolphus, King of
the Lombards, dated 758, into Germany, Spain etc of which the proofs
may be seen in the learned work of Dom Martene, On the Ancient
Rites of the Church. The first allusion to Advent’s
being reduced to four weeks is to be found in the ninth century in a
letter of Pope Saint Nicholas the First to the Bulgarians. The
testimony of Ratherius of Verona and of Abbo of Fleury, both writers
of the tenth century, goes also to prove that even then the question
of reducing the duration of the Advent fast by one-third was
seriously entertained. It is true that Saint Peter Damian, in the
eleventh century, speaks of the Advent fast as still being for forty
days, and that Saint Louis, two centuries later, kept it for that
length of time, but as far as this holy King is concerned, it is
probable that it was only his own devotion which prompted him to this
practice.
The discipline of the
Churches of the West, after having reduced the time of the Advent
fast, so far relented in a few years as to change the fast into a
simple abstinence, and we even find Councils of the twelfth century,
for instance, Selingstadt in 1122 and Avranches in 1172, which seem
to require only the clergy to observe this abstinence. The Council of
Salisbury held in 1281 would seem to expect none but monks to keep
it. On the other hand, (for the whole subject is very confused,
owing, no doubt, to there never having been any uniformity of
discipline regarding it in the Western Church) we find Pope Innocent
III in his letter to the Bishop of Braga mentioning the custom of
fasting during the whole of Advent, as being at that time observed in
Rome. And Durandus, in the same thirteenth century, in his Rational
on the Divine Offices, tells us that in France fasting was
uninterruptedly observed during the whole of that holy time.
This much is certain,
that, by degrees, the custom of fasting so far fell into disuse that
when, in 1362, Pope Urban V endeavoured to prevent the total decay of
the Advent penance, all he insisted upon was that all the clerics of
his court should keep abstinence during Advent, without in any way
including others, either clergy or laity, in this law. Saint Charles
Borromeo also strove to bring back his people of Milan to the spirit,
if not to the letter, of ancient times. In his fourth Council he
enjoins the parish priests to exhort the faithful to go to communion
on the Sundays, at least, of Lent and Advent, and afterwards
addressed to the faithful themselves a Pastoral Letter in which after
having reminded them of the dispositions with which they ought to
spend this holy time, he strongly urges them to fast on the Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays, at least, of each week in Advent. Finally,
Pope Benedict XIV when Archbishop of Bologna, following these
illustrious examples, wrote his eleventh Ecclesiastical
Institution for the purpose of exciting in the mind of his
diocesans the exalted idea which the Christians of former times bad
of the holy season of Advent, and to the removing an erroneous
opinion which prevailed in those parts, namely, that Advent only
concerned Religious and not the laity. He shows them that such an
opinion, unless it be limited to the two practices of fasting and
abstinence, is strictly speaking rash and scandalous, since it cannot
be denied that in the laws and usages of the universal Church there
exist special practices having for their end the preparing the
faithful for the great feast of the birth of Jesus Christ.
The Greek Church still
continues to observe the fast of Advent, though with much less rigour
than that of Lent. It consists of forty days, beginning with the 14th
of November, the day on which this Church keeps the feast of the
Apostle Saint Philip. During this entire period, the people abstain
from flesh-meat, butter, milk and eggs but they are allowed, which
they are not during Lent, fish, oil and wine. Fasting, in its strict
sense, is only binding on seven out of the forty days, and the whole
period goes under the name of Saint Philip’s
Lent. The Greeks justify these relaxations by this distinction: that
the Lent before Christmas is, so they say, only an institution of the
monks, whereas the Lent before Easter is of Apostolic institution.
But, if the exterior
practices of penance which formerly sanctified the season of Advent
have been in the Western Church so gradually relaxed as to have
become now quite obsolete except in monasteries, the general
character of the Liturgy of this holy time has not changed. And it is
by their zeal in foil owing its spirit that the Faithful will prove
their earnestness in preparing for Christmas.
The liturgical form of
Advent as it now exists in the Roman Church has gone through certain
modifications. Saint Gregory seems to have been the first to draw up
the Office for this season, which originally included five Sundays,
as is evident from the most ancient Sacramentaries of this great
Pope. It even appears probable, and the opinion has been adopted by
Amalarius of Metz, Berno of Bichenaw, Dom Martene and Benedict XIV,
that Saint Gregory originated the ecclesiastical precept of Advent,
although the custom of devoting a longer or shorter period to a
preparation for Christmas has been observed from time immemorial, and
the abstinence and fast of this holy season first began in France.
Saint Gregory therefore fixed, for the Churches of the Latin rite,
the form of the Office for this Lent-like season and sanctioned the
fast which had been established, granting a certain latitude to the
several Churches as to the manner of its observance.
The Sacramentary of
Saint Gelasius has neither Mass nor Office of preparation for
Christmas. The first we meet with are in the Gregorian Sacramentary
and, as we just observed, these Masses are five in number. It is
remarkable that these Sundays were then counted inversely, that is,
the nearest to Christmas was called the first Sunday, and so on with
the rest. So far back as the ninth and tenth centuries, these Sundays
were reduced to four, as we learn from Amalarius, Saint Nicholas I,
Berno of Richenaw, Ratherius of Verona etc, and such also is their
number in the Gregorian Sacramentary of Pamelius which appears to
have been transcribed about this same period. From that time the
Roman Church has always observed this arrangement of Advent, which
gives it four weeks, the fourth beings that in which Christmas Day
falls, unless the 25th of December be a Sunday. We may therefore
consider the present discipline of the observance of Advent as having
lasted a thousand years, at least as far as the Church of Rome is
concerned, for some of the Churches in France kept up the number of
five Sundays as late as the thirteenth century.
The Ambrosian Liturgy,
even to this day, has six weeks of Advent. So has the Gothic or
Mozarabic Missal. As regards the Gallican Liturgy, the fragments
collected by Dom Mabillon give us no information, but it is natural
to suppose with this learned man, whose opinion has been confirmed by
Dom Martene, that the Church of Gaul adopted, in this as in so many
other points, the usages of the Gothic Church, that is to say, that
its Advent consisted of six Sundays and six weeks. With regard to the
Greeks, their Rubrics for Advent are given in the Mensea, immediately
after the Office for the 14th of November. They have no proper Office
for Advent, neither do they celebrate during this time the Mass of
the Presanctified as they do in Lent. There are only in the Offices
for the Saints whose feasts occur between the 14th of November and
the Sunday nearest Christmas, frequent allusions to the Birth of the
Saviour, to the Maternity of Mary, to the cave of Bethlehem, etc. On
the Sunday preceding Christmas, in order to celebrate the expected
coming of the Messias, they keep what they call the Feast of the
Holy Fathers, that is the commemoration of the Saints of the Old
Law. They give the name of Ante-Feast of the Nativity to the
20th, 21st, 22nd and 23rd December, and although they say the office
of several Saints on these four days, yet the mystery of the birth of
Jesus pervades the whole Liturgy.
The Mystery of Advent
If, now that we have described the characteristic
features of Advent which distinguish it from the rest of the year we
would penetrate into the profound mystery which occupies the mind of
the Church during this season, we find that this mystery of the
Coming or Advent of Jesus is at once simple and threefold. It is
simple, for it is the one same Son of God that is coming. It is
threefold, because He comes at three different times and in three
different ways.
“In the first Coming,” says Saint Bernard, “He comes in the flesh and in weakness. In the second, He comes in spirit and in power. In the third, He comes in glory and in majesty, and the second Coming is the means whereby we pass from the first to the third.”
This, then, is the mystery of Advent. Let us now
listen to the explanation of this threefold visit of Christ given to
us by Peter of Blois, in his third Sermon de Adventu:
“There are three Comings of our Lord. The first in the flesh, the second in the soul, the third at the judgement. The first was at midnight, according to those words of the Gospel: At midnight there was a cry made, Lo the Bridegroom comes! But this first Coming is long since past, for Christ has been seen on the Earth and has conversed among men. We are now in the second Coming, provided only we are such as that He may thus come to us, for He has said that if we love Him, He will come to us and will take up his abode with us. So that this second Coming is full of uncertainty to us. For who, save the Spirit of God, knows them that are of God? They that are raised out of themselves by the desire of heavenly things know indeed when He comes, but from where He comes, or to where He goes, they know not. As for the third Coming, it is most certain that it will be most uncertain when it will be, for nothing is more sure than death and nothing less sure than the hour of death. When they will say, peace and security, says the Apostle, then will sudden destruction come on them as the pains upon her that is with child, and they will not escape. So that the first Coming was humble and hidden, the second is mysterious and full of love, the third will be majestic and terrible. In His first Coming, Christ was judged by men unjustly. In His second, He renders us just by His grace. In His third, He will judge all things with justice. In His first, a Lamb. In His last, a Lion. In the one between the two, the tenderest of Friends.”
The holy Church therefore, during Advent awaits in
tears and with ardour the arrival of her Jesus in His first Coming.
For this she borrows the fervid expressions of the Prophets to which
she joins her own supplications. These longings for the Messiah
expressed by the Church are not a mere commemoration of the desires
of the ancient Jewish people. They have a reality and efficacy of
their own — an influence in the great act of God’s
munificence by which He gave us His own Son. From all eternity the
prayers of the ancient Jewish people and the prayers of the Christian
Church ascended together to the prescient hearing of God, and it was
after receiving and granting them that He sent, in the appointed
time, that blessed dew upon the Earth which made it bud forth the
Saviour.
The Church aspires also to the second Coming, the
consequence of the first, which consists, as we have just seen, in
the visit of the Bridegroom to the Spouse. This Coming takes place
each year at the Feast of Christmas when the new birth of the Son of
God delivers the faithful from that yoke of bondage under which the
enemy would oppress them. The Church, therefore, during Advent prays
that she may be visited by Him who is her Head and her Spouse,
visited in her hierarchy, visited in her members of whom some are
living and some are dead but may come to life again, visited, lastly,
in those who are not in communion with her, and even in the very
infidels, that so they may be converted to the true Light, which
shines even for them. The expressions of the Liturgy which the Church
makes use of to ask for this loving and invisible Coming, are those
which she employs when begging for the coming of Jesus in the flesh,
for the two visits are for the same object.
In vain would the Son of God have come, [two
thousand] years ago to visit and save mankind unless He came again
for each one of us and at every moment of our lives, bringing to us
and cherishing within us that supernatural life of which He and His
Holy Spirit are the sole principle. But this annual visit of the
Spouse does not content the Church: she aspires after a third Coming
which will complete all things by opening the gates of eternity. She
has caught up the last words of her Spouse, “Surely, I am coming
quickly” (Apocalypse xxii. 20), and she cries out to Him, “Ah!
Lord Jesus! Come!” She is impatient to be loosed from her present
temporal state. She longs for the number of the elect to be filled up
and to see appear, in the clouds of Heaven, the sign of her Deliverer
and her Spouse. Her desires, expressed by her Advent Liturgy, go even
as far as this: and here we have the explanation of those words of
the beloved Disciple in his prophecy: “The nuptials of the Lamb are
come, and His Spouse has prepared herself” (Apocalypse xix. 7).
But the day of this His last Coming to her will be
a day of terror. The Church frequently trembles at the very thought
of that awful judgement in which all mankind is to be tried. She
calls it “a day of wrath on which, as David and the Sibyl have
foretold, the world will be reduced to ashes: a day of weeping and
fear.” Not that she fears for herself, since she knows that this
day will for ever secure to her the crown as being the Spouse of
Jesus, but her maternal heart is troubled at the thought that on the
same day so many of her children will be on the left hand of the
Judge and, having no share with the elect, will be bound hand and
foot and cast into the darkness,where there will be everlasting
weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is the reason why the Church, in
the Liturgy of Advent, so frequently speaks of the Coming of Christ
as a terrible Coming, and selects from the Scriptures those passages
which are most calculated to awaken a salutary fear in the mind of
such of her children as may be sleeping the sleep of sin.
This, then, is the threefold mystery of Advent.
The liturgical forms in which it is embodied, are of two kinds: the
one consists of prayers, passages from the Bible and similar formulas
in all of which words themselves are employed to convey the
sentiments which we have been explaining. The other consists of
external rites peculiar to this holy time which, by speaking to the
outward senses, complete the expressiveness of the chants and words.
First of all, there is the number of the days of Advent. Forty was
the number originally adopted by the Church, and it is still
maintained in the Ambrosian liturgy and in the Eastern Church. If at
a later period the Church of Rome, and those who follow her Liturgy,
have changed the number of days, the same idea is still expressed in
the four weeks which have been substituted for the forty days. The
new birth of our Redeemer takes place after four weeks, as the first
Nativity happened after four thousand years, according to the Hebrew
and Vulgate Chronology.
As in Lent, so likewise during Advent, Marriage is
not solemnised, lest worldly joy should distract Christians from
those serious thoughts with which the expected Coming of the
Sovereign Judge ought to inspire them, or from that dearly cherished
hope which the friends of the Bridegroom (John iii. 29) have of being
soon called to the eternal Nuptial-feast. The people are forcibly
reminded of the sadness which fills the heart of the Church by the
sombre colour of the Vestments. Excepting on the Feasts of the
Saints, purple is the only colour she uses. The Deacon does not wear
the Dalmatic, nor the Subdeacon the Tunic. Formerly it was the custom
in some places to wear Black Vestments. This mourning of the Church
shows how fully she unites herself with those true Israelites of old
who, clothed in sackcloth and ashes, waited for the Messiah and
bewailed Sion that she had not her beauty, and “Judah, that the
sceptre had been taken from him, till He should come who was to be
sent, the expectation of nations” (Genesis xlix. 10). It also
signifies the works of penance by which she prepares for the second
Coming, full as it is of sweetness and mystery, which is realised in
the souls of men in proportion as they appreciate the tender love of
that Divine Guest who has said: “My delights are to be with the
children of men” (proverbs viii. 31). It expresses, thirdly, the
desolation of this Spouse who yearns after her Beloved, who is long
a-coming. Like the turtle dove, she moans her loneliness, longing for
the voice which will say to her: “Come from Libanus, my Spouse!
Come, you will be crowned: you have wounded my heart” (Canticles
iv. 8, 9).
The Church also, during Advent, excepting on the
Feasts of Saints, suppresses the Angelic Canticle, Gloria in
excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonoe voluntatis, for
this glorious Song was only sung at Bethlehem over the crib of the
Divine Babe — the tongue of the Angels is not loosened yet — the
Virgin has not yet brought forth her divine treasure — it is not
yet time to sing, it is not even true to say, Glory be to God in
the highest, and peace on Earth to men of good will! Again, at
the end of Mass, the Deacon does not dismiss the assembly of the
faithful by the words: Ite, Missa est. He substitutes the
ordinary greeting: Benedicamus Domino! as though the Church
feared to interrupt the prayers of the people which could scarce be
too long during these days of expectation. In the Night Office the
Holy Church also suspends, on those same days, the hymn of
jubilation, Te Deum laudamus. It is in deep humility that she
awaits the supreme blessing which is to come to her, and in the
interval she presumes only to ask, and entreat, and hope. But let the
glorious hour come when, in the midst of darkest night, the Sun of
Justice will suddenly rise upon the world — then indeed she will
resume her hymn of thanksgiving, and all over the face of the Earth
the silence of midnight will be broken by this shout of enthusiasm:
“We praise you, O God! We acknowledge you to be our Lord! You, O
Christ, are the King of glory, the everlasting Son of the Father!
You, being to deliver man, did not disdain the Virgin's womb!”
On the Ferial Days, the Rubrics of Advent
prescribe that certain prayers should be said kneeling at the end of
each Canonical Hour, and that the Choir should also kneel during a
considerable portion of the Mass. In this respect, the usages of
Advent are precisely the same as those of Lent.
But there is one feature winch distinguishes
Advent most markedly from Lent: the word of gladness, the joyful
Alleluia, is not interrupted during Advent, except once or
twice during the ferial office. It is sung in the Masses of the four
Sundays, and vividly contrasts with the sombre colour of the
Vestments. On one of these Sundays — the third — the prohibition
of using the organ is removed, and we are gladdened by its grand
notes, and rose-coloured Vestments may be used instead of the purple.
These vestiges of joy, thus blended with the holy mournfulness of the
Church, tell us, in a most expressive way, that though she unites
with the ancient people of God in praying for the coming of the
Messiah (thus paying the debt which the entire human race owes to the
justice and mercy of God), she does not forget that the Emmanuel is
already come to her, that He is in her, and that even before she has
opened her lips to ask him to save her, she has been already redeemed
and predestined to an eternal union with Him. This is the reason why
the Alleluia accompanies even her sighs, and why she seems to be at
once joyous and sad, waiting for the coming of that holy night which
will be brighter to her than the most sunny of days, and on which her
joy will expel all her sorrow.
The Practice of Advent
If our holy mother the Church spends the time of
Advent in this solemn preparation for the threefold Coming of Jesus
Christ: if, after the example of the prudent virgins, she keeps her
lamp lit ready for the coming of the Bridegroom, we, being her
members and her children, ought to enter into her spirit and apply to
ourselves this warning of our Saviour: “Let your loins be girt, and
lamps burning in your hands, and ye yourselves be like men who wait
for their Lord” (Luke xii. 45).
The Church and we have, in reality, the same
hopes. Each one of us is, on the part of God, an object of mercy and
care as is the Church herself. If she is the temple of God, it is
because she is built of living stones. If she is the Spouse, it is
because she consists of all the souls which are invited to eternal
union with God. If it is written that the Saviour has purchased the
Church with His own Blood (Acts xx. 28), may not each one of us say
of himself those words of Saint Paul, “Christ has loved me, and has
delivered Himself up for me?” (Galatians ii. 20).
Our destiny being the same, then, as that of the
Church, we should endeavour during Advent to enter into the spirit of
preparation which is, as we have seen, that of the Church herself.
And firstly, it is our duty to join with the Saints of the Old Law in
asking for the Messiah, and thus pay the debt which the whole human
race owes to the divine mercy. In order to fulfil this duty with
fervour, let us go back in thought to those four thousand years
represented by the four weeks of Advent and reflect on the darkness
and crime which filled the world before our Saviour’s
coming. Let our hearts be filled with lively gratitude towards Him
who saved his creature Man from death, and who came down from Heaven
that He might know our miseries by Himself experiencing them, yes,
all of them, excepting sin. Let us cry to Him with confidence from
the depths of our misery for, notwithstanding His having saved the
work of His hands, He still wishes us to beseech Him to save us. Let
therefore our desires and our confidence have their free utterance in
the ardent supplications of the ancient Prophets, which the Church
puts on our lips during these days of expectation. Let us give our
closest attention to the sentiments which they express.
This first duty complied with, we must next turn
our minds to the Coming which our Saviour wishes to accomplish in our
own hearts. It is, as we have seen, a Coming full of sweetness and
mystery and a consequence of the first, for the Good Shepherd comes
not only to visit the flock in general, but He extends his solicitude
to each one of the sheep, even to the hundredth which is lost. Now,
in order to appreciate the whole of this ineffable mystery, we must
remember that since we can only be pleasing to our Heavenly Father
inasmuch as He sees within us His Son Jesus Christ, this amiable
Saviour deigns to come into each one of us, and transform us, if we
will but consent, into Himself, so that henceforth we may live, not
we, but He in us. This is, in reality, the one grand aim of the
Christian Religion, to make man divine through Jesus Christ: it is
the task which God has given to His Church to do, and she says to the
faithful what Saint Paul said to his Galatians: “My little
children, of whom I am in labour again, until Christ be formed within
you!” (Galatians iv. 19).
But, as on His entering into this world, our
divine Saviour first showed Himself under the form of a weak babe
before attaining the fullness of the age of manhood, and this to the
end that nothing might be wanting to His sacrifice — so does He
intend to do in us. There is to be a progress in His growth within
us. Now, it is at the feast of Christmas that He delights to be born
in our souls, and that He pours out over the whole Church a grace of
being born to which, however, all are not faithful. For this glorious
solemnity, as often as it comes round, finds three classes of men.
The first, and the smallest number are they who live, in all its
plenitude, the life of Jesus who is within them, and aspire
incessantly after the increase of this life. The second class of
souls is more numerous. They are living, it is true, because Jesus is
in them, but they are sick and weakly because they care not to grow
in this divine life: their charity has become cold (Apocalypse ii.
4). The rest of men make up the third division, and are they who have
no part of this life in them, and are dead, for Christ has said: “I
am the Life” (John xiv. 6).
Now, during the season of Advent, our Lord knocks
at the door of all men’s
hearts, at one time so forcibly that they must needs notice him, at
another so softly that it requires attention to know that Jesus is
asking admission. He comes to ask them if they have room for Him, for
He wishes to be born in their house. The house indeed is His, for He
built it and preserves it. Yet He complains that His own refused to
receive Him (John iii.), at least the greater number did. But as
many as received Him, He gave them power to be made the sons of God,
born not of blood, nor of the flesh, but of God (John i. 12, 13).
He will be born, then, with more beauty and lustre
and might than you have hitherto seen in Him, O ye faithful ones, who
hold Him within you as your only treasure, and who have long lived no
other life than His, shaping your thoughts and works on the model of
His. You will feel the necessity of words to suit and express your
love, such words as He delights to hear you speak to Him. You will
find them in the holy Liturgy. You, who have had Him within you
without knowing Him, and have possessed Him without relishing the
sweetness of His presence, open your hearts to welcome Him this time
with more care and love. He repeats His visit of this year with an
untiring tenderness. He has forgotten your past slights. He would
“that all things be new” (Apocalypse xxi. 5). Make room for the
Divine Infant, for He desires to grow within your soul. The time of
His coming is close at hand: let your heart, then, be on the watch
and lest you should slumber when He arrives, watch and pray, yea,
sing. The words of the Liturgy are intended also for your use: they
speak of darkness which only God can enlighten, of wounds which only
His mercy can heal, of a faintness which can only be braced by His
divine energy.
And you, Christians, for whom the good tidings are
as things that are not because you are dead in sin, lo! He who is
very life is coining among you. Yes, whether this death of sin has
held you as its slave for long years or has but freshly inflicted on
you the wound which made you its victim — Jesus, your Life, is
coming: why, then, will you die? He desires “not the death of the
sinner, but rather that he be converted and live” (Ezechiel xviii.
31‒35). The grand Feast
of His birth will be a day of mercy for the whole world: at least,
for all who will give Him admission into their hearts. They will rise
to life again in Him, their past life will be destroyed, and where
sin abounded there grace will more abound (Romans v. 20).
But, if the tenderness and the attractiveness of
this mysterious Coming make no impression on you because your heart
is too weighed down to be able to rise to confidence, and because,
having so long drunk sin like water, you know not what it is to long
with love for the caresses of a Father whom you have slighted —
then turn your thoughts to that other Coming which is full of terror
and is to follow the silent one of grace that is now offered. Think
within yourselves how this Earth of ours will tremble at the approach
of the dread Judge, how the heavens will flee from before His face
and fold up as a book (Apocalypse vi. 14), how man will wince under
His angry look, how the creature will wither away with fear as the
two-edged sword which comes from the mouth of his Creator (Apocalypse
i. 16) pierces him, and how sinners will cry out “Ye mountains,
fall on us! ye rocks, cover us!” (Luke xxiii. 30). Those unhappy
souls who would not know the time of their visitation (Luke xix. 44)
will then vainly wish to hide themselves from the face of Jesus. They
shut their hearts against this Man-God who, in His excessive love for
them, wept over them — therefore, on the day of judgement they will
descend alive into those everlasting fires whose flame devours the
Earth with her increase and burns the foundations of the mountains
(Deuteronomy xxx. 22). The worm that never dies (Mark ix. 43), the
useless eternal repentance, will gnaw them forever.
Let those, then, who are not touched by the
tidings of the Coming of the Heavenly Physician and the Good Shepherd
who gives His life for His sheep, meditate during Advent on the awful
yet certain truth that so many render the redemption unavailable to
themselves by their refusing to co-operate in their own salvation.
They may treat the child who is to be born (Isaias ix. 6) with
disdain, but He is also the Mighty God, and do they think they can
withstand Him on that Day when He is to come not to save, as now, but
to judge? Would that they knew more of this divine Judge before whom
the very Saints tremble! Let them also use the Liturgy of this
season, and they will there learn how much He is to be feared by
sinners.
We would not imply by this that only sinners need
to fear: no, every Christian ought to fear. Fear, when there is no
nobler sentiment with it, makes man a slave. When it accompanies
love, it is a feeling which fills the heart of a child who has
offended his father, yet seeks for pardon. When, at length, love
casts out fear (1 John iv. 18), even then this holy fear will
sometimes come and, like a flash of lightning, pervade the deepest
recesses of the soul. It does the soul good. She wakes up afresh to a
keener sense of her own misery and of the unmerited mercy of her
Redeemer. Let no one, therefore, think that he may safely pass his
Advent without taking any share in the holy fear which animates the
Church. She, though so beloved by God, prays to Him to give her this
fear. And every day in her Office of Sext she thus cries out to Him:
“Pierce my flesh with your Fear.” It is, however, to those who
are beginning a good life, that this part of the Advent Liturgy will
be peculiarly serviceable.
It is evident from what we have said that Advent
is a season specially devoted to the exercises of what is called the
Purgative Life, and which is implied in that expression of Saint
John, so continually repeated by the Church during this holy time:
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord!” Let all, therefore, strive
earnestly to make straight the path by which Jesus will enter into
their souls. Let the just, agreeably to the teaching of the Apostle,
forget the things that are behind (Philippians iii. 13) and labour to
acquire fresh merit. Let sinners begin at once and break the chains
which now enslave them. Let them give up those bad habits which they
have contracted. Let them weaken the flesh, and enter upon the hard
work of subjecting it to the spirit. Let them, above all things, pray
with the Church. And when our Lord comes, they may hope that He will
not pass them by, but that He will enter and dwell within them: for
he spoke of all when He said these words: “Behold, I stand at the
gate and knock: if any man will hear my voice and open to me the
door, I will come in to him” (Apocalypse iii. 20).
