Fr.
Tony’s Letter to the Trinitarians
December
2019
Advent
The
new Christian year started on November 30, Saint Andrew’s Day, because of the
story where Andrew and John become the first disciples and Andrew introduces
his brother Simon Peter to Jesus (John 1:35-40). In the Eastern tradition,
Andrew is often called “the first-called (protokletos)”of the
apostles. The Sunday on or nearest St. Andrew’s Day is the first Sunday
of Advent, effectively four Sundays before Christmas. That means Advent
starts this year on Sunday December 1.
Advent
is the season when we look forward to the coming of Christ, both long ago and
still to arrive. It is a penitential season, like Lent, where we prepare
for the great feasts and celebrations of our faith through introspection,
repentance, and trying to amend our lives. Its liturgical color is usually,
like Lent, Violet, or, in the Sarum use of England’s Salisbury
Cathedral, Marian Blue, since the season celebrates the Blessed Virgin's
acceptance of God's plans to become incarnate through her. Both seasons
are marked with one “Rose Sunday.” (Fourth Lent is Laetare
“lighten up” or refreshment Sunday; third Advent is Gaudete “Rejoice”
Sunday, marked by a pink candle in the otherwise violet or blue Advent Wreath.)
Archbishop
of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer wrote the following collect and placed it in the
first English Book of Common Prayer (1549) for the first Sunday of
Advent:
“Almighty
God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of
light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came
to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again
in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to
the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.”
From
1662 on, prayer books have given the instruction that it be said daily
throughout the entire Advent Season. It is based on the epistle for the
First Sunday of Advent, Romans 13:8-14:
“…
The commandments … are summed up in this one rule: "Love your
neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore
love is the fulfillment of the Law. And do this, because you recognize
what time it is in which we live. The hour has come for you to wake up from
your sleep, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first came to
faith. The night is nearly over; day is almost here. So let us
put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light … [C]lothe
yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and stop worrying about how to gratify the
raging desires of the you that resists God” (my translation).
Paul
here counsels us to amend our lives. Importantly he says we do not need
to worry about rules or points of purity in and of themselves. Rather, he
says, we simply need to show love to each other and all the rest will take care
of itself.
He
uses the graphic image of waking up in the morning and putting on clothes for
the new day to describe why showing love and acting in love it is so
important. He likens the dawning of a new day to the future coming of
Jesus in glory: “Night is nearly over. Day is almost here. So let
us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
Twilight
is a curious state—part day, part night. It can signal the onset of
night, or precede the breaking of day. Paul wants us to be sure
that we look at the mixed signals around us and realize that God is at work and
things are going to get better, not worse. It is going to get lighter,
not darker.
He
uses the image of all night parties that will surely cause regret and headaches
the next morning to describe such “deeds of darkness,” that is, actions that
are symptomatic of this messed up world.
“Wake
up,” he says, “and put away this age’s abusive ways, and put on new clothes for
the new day.” He calls these an “armor of light” as if to say that the
clothes we put on for the new day will serve as a hedge or protection against
the darkness of the current age, adding, “Put on as your new clothes Jesus
Christ himself.”
Beating ourselves into submission and forcing ourselves to follow rules against “works of darkness” is a recipe for unhappiness and tension—the very kind of tension that leads us compulsion to engage in those very works of darkness we hope to put away. “Clothing ourselves in Christ” brings us to the light more and more, and actually empowers us to show love so bad behaviors will of themselves drop off and cease.
Paul
is talking about putting the example of Christ before our eyes, putting
gratitude for what he has done for us in our hearts. A heart full of
gratitude has little room for the selfishness that generates unjust, hurtful,
abusive, and wanton acts.
I
invite us all this Advent to say that collect for Advent in our prayers each
day.
Grace
and Peace,
Fr.
Tony+
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