Advent!
“O Come O come Emmanuel”, so we will sing as we enter this new season of the Church’s year. In the general norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar there is written, “By means of the yearly cycle the Church celebrates the whole mystery of Christ, from his incarnation until the days of Pentecost and the expectation of his coming again.”
Yes, the new liturgical year of the Church, 2025/26 begins today. Advent, a season of preparation for the festivities of Christmas. “Next to the yearly celebration of the Paschal mystery (Easter), the Church holds most sacred the commemoration of the Lord’s birth and manifestations.” Therefore, in this season we now enter we will prepare for Christmas when Christ’s first coming is remembered. Yet, firstly, that remembrance invites our minds and hearts to be directed to await Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time.
The birth of a babe; and the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time; both we are invited to await with joyful expectation.
This year my family welcomed the first child of a new generation. Joyful expectation was certainly our experience as the time grew closer. There was some tension experienced with the natural hope that all would be well with the pregnancy and with the birth. Even in this day, we know how vulnerable, yet resilient is the little one in the womb, as well as is the mother who bears the newborn child.
Such a gut feeling of emotion came when hearing that baby was born; mother and child both well. And then when beholding the wee babe, the feeling of awe, of delight. Such intricate details of eyes, mouth, nose, ears, fingers, legs, toes!
In these first couple of weeks of Advent, as the candles we light are purple, we can prepare our hearts and minds for the end of times, and consider, does Christ’s final coming invoke in me fear or the feeling of awe and delight?
The invitation is to set our hearts and mind to recognise, that through his life, death and resurrection, Jesus has opened the halls of the Eternal Banquet to us all. While scriptures in this time will bring feelings of a need to turns our hearts the Lord, to refocus, may they also inspire in us a joyful expectation. How beautiful it will be to experience the fullness of God at times end, who we glimpse now in the birth of a babe.
With prayers for the journey, Patrick
