Advent
in and out of Time
Fr.
Tony’s Letter to the Trinitarians
December
2017
“Christ yesterday and today,
the beginning and the end,
Alpha and Omega,
all time belongs to him.”
--The Blessing
on the Paschal Candle
during the
Great Vigil of Easter
“As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be…”
--The Glory to
the Father at the end of
Psalmody in the
Daily Office
Saint
Hilary of Poitiers (AD 300-368) refers obliquely to a time of preparation
before observing the mid-winter celebration of our Lord’s birth and appearing. In
AD 380, the Council of Saragossa decreed that starting December 17, in the 21
days before Epiphany or Theophany (January 6), everyone needed to go to Church
daily. Saint Gregory of Tours (AD 490) ruled
that monks under his leadership “should observe fasting every day during the
month of December, up to Christmas Day.”
Within
100 years several local councils of the Church specified dates for penance and
fasting for preparing for Christmas by clergy and laity. Advent seems to have started as a time of
penance before Christmas that mirrored the 40 day Lenten Fast before
Easter. By the mid 6th
century, the Roman Church had formalized the practice, originally a 6 week fast
that soon was shortened to four weeks by pope Gregory the Great (AD 590-604).
Today,
“preparing for the coming of Christ” in Advent has three different focal
points: Jesus’ birth in Palestine
(past), Jesus coming to the heart of the individual believer (present), and
Jesus coming in glory at the end of time (future). These different frames are reflected in our
carols and hymns: “On Jordan’s bank the Baptist’s cry announces that the Lord
is nigh,” “Lo! The Lamb, so long expected, comes with pardon down from heaven,
let us haste, with tears of sorrow, one and all to be forgiven. So when next he comes in glory and the world
is wrapped in fear, may he with his mercy shield us, and with words of love
draw near,” and “Lo! He comes with clouds descending, once for our salvation
slain… Christ the Lord returns to reign.”
Such
conflation of past, present, and future is not simply an accident of liturgy
and calendar. It actually reflects
profound theology—both sacramental and of the nature of God. When we say, “we believe in one God, creator
of heaven and the earth,” we are asserting that this creator is not part of
creation, and stands apart in some ways from space and time. All things and all times are eternally
present before the creator. That’s what
“eternal” means: not a time line without
ends, but rather outside of any specific time line, and present in all. It’s what makes prophecy as prediction
possible without compromising human free will:
God observes all and is in all. It’s
why we say in the Creed that the Son of God is eternally begotten of the
Father, and why we say that Christ is made present to us on the cross, and in
risen glory, in the Holy Eucharist. This
truth is what the blessing on the Paschal Candle and the Glory to the Father at
the end of Daily Office psalms seek to express:
all time is present to Christ, the beginning and the end. In our participation in Christ, we
participate in all time. Thus Advent is a mixed season, and not as
wholly penitential as Lent. It why we
rejoice as we await the Lord’s coming.
Grace
and Peace,
Fr.
Tony+
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