Christmas - 25 December, 2006

Should we Celebrate Christmas?

I have noticed lately with all the discussion in the media whether we should celebrate Christmas in a multi-cultural society. Some suggest that Christmas was originally the Roman Saturnalia and therefore ‘hi-jacked’ by the Christians. Some commentators given the impression that they believe it is some sort of devious plot by ‘the Church’ – whoever they may be.

Mid-Winter Festivals

For a start, Saturnalia was only one of a very, very long line of mid-winter solstice feasts celebrated through many ages and many cultures. The mid-winter festival reveals the deep human intuition that sought reassurance and hope in the depths of the winter struggle for physical survival. Human beings, being such meaning-making creatures then associated physical survival with survival of spirit. In the long, cold (probably damp) darkness of winter they reaffirmed the light – physical and spiritual. The intuition of the early Christian communities in celebrating the birth of Christ with such a festival is most appropriate.

The Birth of Christmas

Perhaps the story goes a little like this. As their pagan neighbours celebrated their mid-winter festivals, the Christians for whom Christ was the Risen Lord, ‘the Light who has come into the world’, began to celebrate the moment when that Light was born. In recalling Jesus’ birth, they also celebrated and looked to a time when that Light would be fulfilled in Eternity.

So, the feast of the Nativity spread to other cultures of the Roman empire where Christians lived and over time this celebration became a fixed feast. Remember, the earliest and most important Christian feast has always been the Resurrection, Christmas, as a feast of the universal church came relatively late.

Actual Date or Meaning?

Was it the actual date of Jesus’ birth? Who know, and it doesn’t matter. There is a deeper truth here, a truth that the human ability to find meaning in life’s and nature’s events honours. A truth that celebrates the ancient struggle of darkness and light; despair and hope.

This is reflected in the reading for Midnight Eucharist. Isaiah (9:1-7) proclaims that The people that walked in darkness has seen a great light; on those who live in a land a deep shadow a light has shone. The letter to Titus (2:11-14) joyfully cries out that God’s grace has been revealed, and it has made salvation possible for the whole human race… Those early Christian communities saw in their sacred texts that Jesus was the light that shone in the darkness. The age-old mystery of the turning of the seasons became the symbol of the Light of God entering creation.

The Language of God

This is God ‘speaking’ in our human language, the language of symbol, meaning and hope, above all, the language of a human life.

John Duns Scotus (late 13^th century Franciscan theologian) proposed that Jesus’ birth was essential to God’s creation and intended from all eternity. Jesus, God incarnate is the crown and glory of creation and his birth brings God’s creating and revelatory love to fruition. For Scotus, something totally new has entered creation, affirming that this world and human life with all its ambiguity is embraced in God’s Trinitarian love. God has committed Godself to us, not just through creation but now through the Incarnation of the Word-made-flesh. In Christ, the Triune God is here in the pulsing heart of creation.

So, in the birth of Jesus we see creation, ourselves, in all our glory and possibility. He is God clothed in living, breathing human flesh. Jesus is the language God speaks.

Particularity

Such is the humility and the wonder of God that, in order to reveal the beauty of Divinity and the beauty of humanity, he chose particularity. This means a particular person, in an historical time and place. Jesus, son of Mary and Joseph, a person - conceived, gestated, born, growing up, living and dying – just as each one of us does. He took the full human journey – no shortcuts, no easy escapes.

St. Clare of Assisi called Jesus the ‘mirror of eternity’. He is also the mirror of humanity. In his human life we believe he reveals the nature of God, but he also reveals the nature of us. He shows us how to be human.

Feast of Beginnings and Endings

In this feast we celebrate beginnings and endings. The beginning of Jesus’ journey to maturity, identity and self-understanding – all the sort of growing up we have to do.

We celebrate an ending. An ending to our self-deluding illusions that dominant power, ego-centric power is all that matters. If Jesus, God-with-us, is the crown of creation and the full revelation of the nature of God, then he reveals how creation ‘works’. It works through solidarity-in-love, through abiding commitment to all that brings creation to the fullness of peace.

We are, and always have been caught up in the dance of the Trinity.

The Crib

Today as you look at the crib and read the Gospel story, for a moment strip it of all the ‘miraculous’. It is a family, ordinary, pushed around by the Roman emperor, struggling to care for each other in the most crucial moment of their lives, knowing they are entrusted with something most precious and mysterious, in the disruption of their lives living in faith that God’s way will prevail – even if they don’t know how.

Then, add in the angels, the shepherds, the light, the star, the Magi and the Angels’ song. These tell us about the inner reality of what is happening at this birth. Than an overwhelming, joyous mystery is happening – for all of us – and is hidden in this glorious moment.

May the tenderness, joy and awe of God-with-us fill your hearts.

The ‘O Antiphons’ Part II - 22 December, 2006

The ‘O Antiphons’ Part Two

Well, Advent is drawing to a close and the feast of Christmas is only a few days away.

The more I though about the great Antiphons of my last posting, I though how they drew all the themes of Advent together. Most certainly they evoke the sense of longing for fulfilment and hope for a future where love and justice will reign. In this way they cry out for, what Christians call the Second Coming, or Parousia which is at the very heart of the Advent and Christmas liturgy.

These Antiphons also teach us about another advent of Christ – the coming of Christ into our lives each day. It is the petition part of the antiphons that call for God to act now. The petitions are:

Teach us the way of prudence

Redeem us

Save us

Deliver us from the chains of prison who sit in darkness and the shadow of death

Enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death

Save the poor one whom you fashion out of clay

Save us

Implicit in our very longing for Christ, is our deep sense of neediness, not just for each one of us individually, but particularly for us as the human race, in fact for all creation. We have a solidarity in incompleteness and neediness and it is from this sense of unity, that we call on God to act in our world now.

However, for all the pain and incompletion we see in our world, we do not call despairingly, we call with hope because God does teach, save, enlighten, redeem here and now. The sweep of the history of Israel taught this and for us we seen in the Incarnation God’s reaffirmation of that creative, redeeming love that evokes the great cry of the O Antiphons. The fulfilment of the Parousia will only come when we co-operate.

I call to mind an old movie, Oh God. George Burns played God and when he was asked why he didn’t do something about the suffering and evil in the world, he replied that he had given the world to us. I think this is a profound piece of theology. God takes our part in co-creating with God very, very seriously. Our loving and just deeds are the coming of God in Christ here and now, and while God takes our co-operation seriously, we are never abandoned to strive alone. God gives us the power choose, to work, to show compassion. We are co-creators with God.

The very fact that we have the insight to cry for redemption, deliverance, teaching and all those needs implies that somewhere in our hearts we know that destruction is not the norm for creation (no matter what the current world may appear to be) and that the wholeness sought will come. After all, “Would a father give his child a stone when he asks for bread”. God puts the cry into our hearts so we may know that through us God will do it.

However, the shocking thing is that it is precisely though our human agency that all God’s gifts will be given. We are given to each other to be the face of God for each other, so perhaps we can turn then to the titles of the great Antiphons and see our own faces mirrored in them – O Wisdom; O Lord and Ruler and so on so we become Emmanuel, God with us, to each other and to all creation.

The ‘O Antiphons’ 17 December, 2006

The ‘O Antiphons’

The Liturgy

Today, 17^th December the liturgy begins a new phase of Advent, known as the Octave before Christmas. This period is characterised by the seven great ‘O Antiphons’ that derive their name from the first invocation of the Latin text.These antiphons will be sung or recited in the divine office of the Roman breviary over the next seven evenings at the singing of the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). They are also used at the gospel acclamation during the Eucharist for each of these days.

History

We are not sure when these texts were first introduced into the liturgy, however there is reference to them by Boethius (ca. 480-524) and they were well established in the liturgy by the Middle Ages. Over the centuries there have been variations in the text and number of the antiphons, but these seven seen to have been constant. The Benedictine monasteries, in particular kept alive the tradition of reciting these texts.

Literature

These short verses are gems of literature and have been the source of some of our most beautiful music and art. The texts of these antiphons are a distillation of seven images and titles from the Old Testament which were interpreted by the early Christian community as prefiguring Christ.

An echo of the antiphons is found in the eighteenth century hymn, Come, O Come Emmanuel.

Scripture

Those first followers of Jesus of Nazareth used their familiar heritage, i.e. the Jewish Scriptures and Apocrypha to understand who Jesus was, so they came to see him as the fulfilment of all the longings and hopes of their own Jewish ancestors. Over centuries of meditation on the mystery of Jesus, the Church, the believing community at prayer, distilled their belief in the Incarnation and Redemption into these seven texts. In doing this, they also expressed their longing for the fulfilment of God’s promises.

The individual Biblical origins of each text are too numerous to list here, however, they are steeped in the texts of Isaiah.

Advent Longing

These texts increase the sense in the Advent liturgy of longing for the coming of the Messiah, a longing that will bring about the final fulfilment of the Parousia. It is as if, in the words of St. Paul that ‘All creation is groaning in the act of giving birth..’. The whole sweep of creation and history is given voice.

The sequence of the titles of Christ in these antiphons is important because they begin with the very heart of the Trinity before creation in invoking O Wisdom, to God’s covenant at Sinai with the chosen people (O Adonai), to God’s promising a just ruler (O Root of Jesse; O Key of David) to God’s promise to all people.

So, the antiphons follow the sweep of salvation history and keep alive our hope for God’s action now in our world, our lives. They evoke that painful, joyful, hopeful longing of lovers for each other.

The Structure

The antiphons follow the traditional liturgical structure of an invocation which highlights one of the titles of the Messiah, followed by praise and then a petition.

It has been suggested by Professor Robert Greenberg of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music that the Benedictines deliberately arranged the order of the antiphons so that, reading the first letter of each from the last to the first gave the Latin, ero cras which means Tomorrow, I will come.

The Antiphons

The following are the antiphons with some biblical references for each text. They are by no means exhaustive.

O Sapientia (17 December)
O Wisdom, you come for the from the mouth of the Most High. You fill the universe and hold all things together in a strong yet gentle manner. O come to teach us the way of truth.

Over time, Wisdom became another name for God as well as a human attribute. Divine Wisdom (a feminine noun in both Hebrew and Greek) was God’s creating force and creation is not a once and for all event, God’s creating power never ends. Read the Book of Wisdom, a late text that, in many ways is a highly developed theology of Divine Wisdom.

Proverbs 8:22f Wisdom speaks: The Lord begot me, the firstborn of his ways, the forerunner of his prodigies of long ago; From of old I was poured forth, at the first, before the earth….When he established the heavens I was there, when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep….Then I was beside him as his child and I was his delight day by day, playing before him all the while, playing on the surface of his earth; and I found delight in the children of men.

Cf. Eccl 24:5; Sirach 24:30; Isaiah 11:2-3; 28:29; 40:14

O Adonai (18 December)
O Adonai and leader of Israel, you appeared to Moses in a burning bush and you gave him the Law on Sinai. O come and save us with your mighty power.

Adonai is a Hebrew title for God. It means The Lord. The Jewish people still do no use the name of God. Adonai suggests the Lawgiver. (cf. Exodus 3; 6:13; 20) We must not see the Law in our western terms as a set of rules. The Law for the Jewish people is about God’s relationship with them, it is the way to walk in this world, not some punishable set of rules. The Law is God’s great gift of self revelation to Israel and in turn, Israel’s response to God.

But He shall judge the poor with justice, and decide aright for the afflicted of the land….Justice shall be the band around his waist, and faithfulness the belt upon his hips (Is 11:4-5)

And he shall rule over the House of Israel (Matt 2:6)

Cf. Jer 32:21; Isaiah 33:22)

O Radix Jesse (19 December)
O Stock of Jesse, you stand as a signal for the nations; kings fall silent before you whom the peoples acclaim. O come to deliver us, and do not delay.

You only have to look at the great stained glass windows of the medieval cathedrals such as Chartres to understand how this image fell into Christian consciousness. It is the family tree of Jesus that echoes in the genealogies of Luke and Matthew. The genealogies of Jesus establish his human and divine credentials – and there are some interesting women in those lists.

A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse, and from his roots a bud shall blossom (Isaiah 11:1)

Cf. Isaiah 11:4-5; 33:22; 52:15; Habakkuk 2:3; Micah 5:1; Luke 3:23-38; Matt: 1:1017

O Clavis David (20 December)
O Key of David and sceptre of Israel, what you open no one else can close again; what you close no one can open. O come to lead the captive from prison; free those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

David came to epitomise the good ruler for Israel, particularly when they looked back over a history of kings who ranged from wise to wicked. David, for all his human frailty, or perhaps because of it, remained faithful to God. He committed appalling deeds, including murder, yet he profoundly repented; he brought the Arc of the Covenant (the ‘dwelling place’ of God) to Jerusalem and against all kingly dignity, danced before it; he lived his call to kingship with passion and through it all, tried to rule with justice for the people. Through all his human complexity, he knew himself to be chosen by God. He epitomised the faithful, just ruler and God promised the perfect leader would come through his descendants.

I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; when he opens, no one will shut, when he shuts, no one will open (Isaiah 22:22)

His dominion is vast and forever peaceful, from David’s throne, and over his kingdom, which he confirms and sustains by judgment and justice, both now and forever (Isaiah 9:1)

Cf. Revelation 3:7; Psalm 107:10

O Oriens (21 December)
O rising Sun, you are the splendour of Eternal Light and sun of justice. O come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

For a traditional society such as Israel, imagine how the darkness of night could be full of danger from preying animals to preying humans. This applied whether people lived in villages or in the towns. Dawn brought safety. Also, lamplight was not all that clear, so dawn and light came to symbolise safety, enlightenment, a new beginning.

Think of nights you have spent sleepless because of some anxiety, and remember how it felt when the night gave way to the dawn. The problem may not have gone away, but there is usually a sense relief or hope.

‘Dayspring’; ‘Light’ became a title for God who will visit his people ‘like the dawn’

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; upon those who dwelt in the land of gloom a light has shone (Isaiah 9:1)

Cf. Malachi 3:20; Habakkuk 3:4; Psalm 107; Luke 1:78

O Rex Gentium (22 December)
O King whom all the peoples desire, you are the cornerstone which makes all one, O come and save us whom you made from clay.

The history of Israel is also the history of the evolution of its self-understanding and its mission. At first the Gentiles (or the Nations) were seen as hostile. God’s habitation was in Israel. God did not inhabit among the gentiles. It took centuries of living through prosperity and adversity; political power and exile for Israel to understand that it was called, not to be some holy enclave where God dwelt, but to be the place where all would see God. A sacrament of God’s presence, if you wish. It was during exile from their homeland that the Israelites came to know that God was beyond a particular place, God was indeed God of all peoples. That God desires the love of all people, not just Israel.

This was a momentous shift in theology. Read the Book of Job who is a holy gentile who God calls his friend; read the Book of Jonah, that great comedy. Jonah, a good Jew is sent by God to warn the people of Nineveh (gentiles) to repent. Much to Jonah’s annoyance they do and God blesses them. Jonah finds this very difficult and remonstrates with God for saving these gentiles. God replies, ‘And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons, who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?’

He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on the nations. They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again. Isaiah 2:4

For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. His name is Wonder-Counsellor, Mighty God, Father Forever, Prince of Peace Isaiah9:5

Cf. Haggai 2:8; Gen 2:7; Ephesians 2:20

O Emmanuel
O Emmanuel, you are our king and judge, the One whom the peoples await and their Saviour. O come and save us, Lord, our God.

Of all the titles, this is probably the most familiar. In Israel, names have meaning. Names signify who a person is and often names change when that person’s mission or reality changes, for example Abram became Abraham and Jesus called Simon bar Jonah Peter, the rock.

Emmanuel is a symbolic name. It signifies who God is and who we are - God-with-us. This is the profound theological insight into God’s relationship with Israel, that through all its history – the good and the bad – God is with Israel and Israel is with God.

This Old Testament title takes on a deeper meaning as the early Christian community sought to understand who Jesus was. In his birth, life, death and resurrection, he is God-with-us. They came to see that in Jesus God has deepened that relationship so profoundly that they could now say that in Jesus they saw God incarnate, God enfleshed.

The Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel. Isaiah 7:14

Cf. Isaiah 8:8; Gen 49:10; Isaiah 33:2.

So, as the expectation of Advent increases, may each of you find the deepest desires of your hearts awakened and nourished by Emmanuel – God-with-us; God irrevocably committed to us. In the great liturgical cry of the very early church -Maranatha – Come, Lord Jesus.

On Christmas Trees and Carols - 16 December, 2006.

On Christmas Trees and Carols

The Christmas Tree

I have a Christmas tree. After many years without one, I now have a Christmas tree - not a plastic one, not a chopped down one, but a real, living tree.

My childhood memories of Christmas include the Christmas tree. We always had an Australian native tree and I can still smell its fragrance, so typical of the Australian bush, and see the exquisite glass tree decorations. I also remember that it seemed to attract mosquitoes in their hoards. But that’s part of a tropical Christmas anyway.

Over the years I went through my ‘intellectually liberated’ phase and denigrated the Christmas tree as commercialisation and after all, just a pagan import and a left-over from the Victorian era. Also it was a product of northern hemisphere celebrations, so what did it have to say for us in Australia. What a sour, desiccated and one dimensional view I had.

The Christmas tree is all that but there is another side that it celebrates. All good things are open to exploitation but that does not discount their power and goodness. I still feel strongly that we need to find Australian symbols (and validate those we already have) to enrich our celebration of these great feasts, that is why I went out and bought myself a Christmas tree.

The wonder of it is that it is a Daintree Pine. To quote the nursery tag, it is ‘a rare native pine from World Heritage forests of Far North Queensland. Fossil records show the Daintree Pine dates back to the Gondwana period’. For me, it symbolises this very ancient land that is now Australia. As Gondwana travelled the globe and eventually broke up into the land masses we now know, this pine was growing. It survived climate changes of cataclysmic proportions, geological upheavals and the arrival of human beings.

For me, it is a fitting symbol of what we celebrate during this liturgical season – enduring hope.

It is fitting that our Christian symbols are symbols that are found across many cultures and religions, because that’s the nature of symbols. Symbols are a language that speaks to the deepest longings, hopes and aspirations of humans. Because of this, they have the power to speak in different times and places. They break open new meanings as our consciousness changes. They have the power to synthesise many facets of meaning. (Symbol comes from the Greek sym – ballon which means to throw/bring together.)

So my evergreen Daintree Christmas tree links this celebration of Christmas – God’s commitment to all creation through Incarnation – with earth’s earliest times of creation; with cultures where the tree meant survival (literally) and symbolised the link between heaven and earth; life and hope.

As a Christian symbol it draws all that together in Jesus, the Branch of the tree of Jesse – the One who brings new life and hope always renewed. The evergreen tree (a deciduous tree has another meaning) says that life continues even in the harshest to times, just as God’s creating, loving presence abides even in our harsh times, that when we keep grounded in the soil of our deep purpose in God, we remain green and flourishing.

On Christmas Carols

This week I attended the Festival of Carols and Readings at the Cathedral. It was a feast of contemporary and traditional carols and Scripture readings. We in the congregation, got to sing the familiar carols which we did with great gusto.

I was reminded of one parish I attended some years ago in which the music co-ordinator decided to abolish all traditional Christmas carols because they were ‘theologically incorrect’. I have to tell you that midnight Mass was far from festive.

As we sang, listened, prayed and remembered, I began thinking about how important repetition and the familiar are for us human beings. We live in a society that idolises that which is new – as soon as you buy a new computer it seems to be out of date. This is not necessarily bad. Our ability to change is absolutely integral to maturity, both individually and as a species. However, we also need the familiar, and repetition is part of that familiarity. It is an important part of a spiritual discipline.

On a psychological level, we are constantly telling ourselves about ourselves. It’s called self-talk. That may be positive or negative given the situation or our background.

The spiritual discipline of repetition may be learning texts from the Scripture, learning prayers, learning short phrases or traditions like the Rosary or the Jesus Prayer. Its aim is to change our consciousness, to give us resources of mind and heart upon which to draw in daily life in order to uplift our spirits, be patient with annoyances, focus on what is important and so on.

However, it has another function. The familiar had the ability to open us to newness. Boredom has the power to bring insight. I remember reading in G.K. Chesterton’s Napoleon of Notting Hill to the effect that if you see something ninety-nine times, on the hundredth time you are in danger of seeing it for the first time. That’s what happens when that which is familiar has gone through the process of being learned to the extent that we don’t ‘see’ it anymore; through the boredom threshold; to a moment of ‘Ah!’ Seeing it filled with new meaning.

So, as we sang our familiar carols – words we sing every year, with images that have accrued to this festival over two millennia – I saw that what was seen as just another baby being born was, in truth shattering Mystery enveloped in the Ordinary, that always the Ordinary is pregnant with God - and that is why angels do sing on high and wise people follow a star.

Second Sunday of Advent

Second Sunday of Advent

Some of the words that keep returning during Advent: Arise! Come! Prepare! Repent! Rejoice! They return like a refrain evoking a sense of urgency, longing, active waiting. For me, they give the ‘flavour’ of Advent.

In our Eucharistic celebrations we don’t use the antiphons for the day these days as we usually sing a hymn. However, the antiphons for both the Eucharist and the Divine Office are worth looking at as they capture the sense of the celebration. Today’s entrance antiphon is, People of Zion, the Lord will come to save all nations, and your hearts will exult to hear his majestic voice; and the communion antiphon – Rise up, Jerusalem, stand on the heights, and see the joy that is coming to you from God. They give exultant voice to the scripture readings for today.

Repentance For The Forgiveness Of Sins

John the Baptist calls us to repentance for the forgiveness of sins and the text is reinforced with Isaiah’s call to listen to the voice in the wilderness – prepare the way for the Lord.

So often we think of repentance as a hard, painful, dare I say grim act and it is such a big word that perhaps we think that only big sinners need do it. The truth is, we all need repentance – for things we have done and things we have not done. We all need a change of heart to allow ourselves to mature and leave behind those acts and attitudes that give us false security and false ego strengths.

Repentance is very different from our contemporary idea of ‘guilt feelings’. Guilt may be appropriate or inappropriate, for example I may feel a vague sense of guilt because I tramp garden through the house because when I was a child my parents told me to wipe my feet before I came into the house. As I am the only person who cleans my house, that is rather childish and I need to deal with it. However, if I were living with others whose living space was littered with my garden-encrusted shoes, I would need to look at my lack of care for other people’s comfort and change my ways, that is, repent and perhaps look at deeper issues of lack of responsibility and care for others. A bit like what we are doing to our environment, really. Genuine repentance breaks the cycle of self-absorption and opens us to change and communion.

In genuine repentance for our misdeeds there will be pain and even at times, tears for the harm we have caused to ourselves and others. However, to stop there is not Christian. Repentance and forgiveness go hand in hand. Therefore while we will suffer when we recognise the harm and pain we have caused, that suffering is at its very heart, a deep sense of joy, hope and renewal.

God’s Integrity; God’s Salvation.

John the Baptist calls his hearers to repentance for forgiveness and it is this act that makes the pathways straight for God to come rushing in. It is as the communion antiphon proclaims - Rise up… and see the joy that is coming to you from God. It is as if God is always waiting for us to clear the rubble from the pathway. God so loves our freedom that God will not force – inspire, urge, hover but never compel.

Yet, it is God’s gift. If we cry out ‘Come’ to God, it is God who also cries out to us ‘Come’ because God’s desire is for us - People of Zion, the Lord will come to save all nations, and your hearts will exult to hear his majestic voice. God’s desire and longing is to save us, draw us and delight us.

The first reading from Baruch 5:1-9 today asks, shouts, proclaims, excitedly urges us to: take off your dress of sorrow and distress, put on the beauty of the glory of God for ever, wrap the cloak of the integrity of God around you……since God means to show your splendour to every nation under heaven….. This is God’s will and longing for us.

Grandiose? Intemperate metaphor? Well, only look around, it hasn’t happened yet? No, it is we who cannot see; we who underrate our own dignity and God’s abounding longing for us.

A New Name

In the Scriptures when someone is given a new name, it signifies a new reality for that person. Names have profound significance. So, now God calls Jerusalem ‘Peace through integrity, and honour through devotedness’. God’s integrity and devotedness or our integrity and devotedness? Who knows? Probably both as one without the other is incomplete. And there’s the rub – the beauty and the glory that God has bestowed on us asks us to live our lives with the same integrity and devotedness as God lives for us.

Is it hard? Too right it is, at times it will be anything from mildly uncomfortable (e.g. what we buy and where we shop) to giving up all we think we hold dear (security, reputation, a pet perception).

Is it joyful? Too right it is, after all, the new name is ‘Peace through integrity, and honour through devotedness’

So, I wish for you that you arise, come, prepare, repent and rejoice!

First Sunday of Advent

Advent:

Advent is my favourite liturgical season. I know Easter is THE season, but Advent encourages me in a way Lent is never able to. Liturgical heresy! I love the Scripture readings, the antiphons and many of the hymns. They create a sense of joyful hope.

Expectation:
If the feasts of November remind us about endings, Advent contemplates beginnings. It is a time of waiting – not passive and powerless – but waiting with expectation. Rather like parents awaiting the birth of their child. There is joyful expectation, active preparation and a modicum of terror at the responsibility of nurturing the child.

It is the nature of Christian faith that we live in the ‘in between time’. God is revealed in Christ, yet is to be fully revealed; redemption has been given, yet is to be fully apprehended; Christ is risen, yet the full body of Christ, the church, is yet to rise; the promises are fulfilled, but are yet to be fulfilled. We live in this time where the Spirit is given yet we still ‘wait in joyful hope for the coming of Our Lord Jesus Christ’. It is precisely this ‘in between-ness’ that draws us towards the fulfilment of the End – the Parousia - and draws us into Christ and matures us into Christ.

In this ‘in between time’ it is our God inspired actions that will bring about the final fulfilment. St. Francis of Assisi wrote that we are mothers of Christ when we bring him to birth in our lives through our good works. So, like parents awaiting the birth of their child, Advent is a metaphor for our whole lives. We await the birth, we give birth and like every desired and loved birth, it is an act of hope in the goodness of the future.

The Two-Fold Coming Of Christ:
So the two images of birth and the fulfilment of the End, come together in the liturgy of this season. Advent-Christmas-Epiphany celebrates the birth of Jesus and celebrates his second coming.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem wrote, ‘We preach not one coming only of Christ, but a second also, far more glorious than the first. The first revealed the meaning of his patient endurance; the second brings with it the crown of the divine kingdom….. In his first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in the manger. In his second coming he is clothed with light as with a garment…..It is not enough for us, then, to be content with his first coming; we must wait in hope for his second coming; we must wait in hope of his second coming. What we said at his first coming, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”, we shall repeat at his last coming. Running out with the angels to meet the Master we shall cry out with adoration, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.”’

As we prepare to celebrate Jesus born into our human condition, born one of us we do so with the knowledge that already we share in his resurrection condition and that one day, at the End, all creation will fully share in that resurrection. That the hope that is part of human birth will be fulfilled when all creation’s destiny is revealed.

However, Advent also reminds us that like good parents, we must nurture and protect the life entrusted to our care. This life is nothing more nor less than the mystery of Christ – Emmanuel, God-with-us. We are the mothers of Christ…..

Many Comings:
While the liturgy of Advent focuses of the great two-fold coming of Christ, in our daily lives we can celebrate many times Christ comes to us as we are attentive to those graced moments when he is offering us his love. Those moments may be heavily disguised with hassles, anguish or nuisances or they may be moments of friendship, insight, goodness. Grace means gift. They are moments of grace in which Christ ‘grows’ in us and we in him. They also ask us to prepare the way of the Lord through our compassion, justice, attentiveness and graceful giving and receiving.

So, for us, the waiting of Advent is that of the parent awaiting the birth. We wait in joy and hope; responsibility and courage and above all, we wait in love.

I wish you a blessed Advent. May each of you ‘wait in joyful hope’.