The document provides information about the liturgical season of Advent, including: - Advent is a season of preparation to celebrate Christ's birth and anticipation of his second coming. - It traditionally begins four Sundays before Christmas and focuses on themes of hope, renewal, and spiritual preparation through prayer and penance. - Advent rituals like lighting candles on the Advent wreath each week symbolize the progression of time until Christ's birth is celebrated at Christmas.

1. Welcome!

2. The Season of
Advent

3. Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God,
the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ
with righteous deeds at his coming,
so that, gathered at his right hand,
they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
- Collect, I Sunday of Advent

4. Making time
Time (chronos) is a human concept.
We move through time, occupying
no more than one point:
Past --- Present --- Future
We measure time, we analyze it,
we follow it: in the stars, the sun,
online (http://time.nist.gov), GPS, even on the radio!

5. Making time
We interact with others, and
choose to contact God in our
own time, in our own way.
To do that we use the months and
even the seasons of the year,
the weeks in each month,
the hours of every day,
and even the very minutes and seconds.

6. Making time holy
God, however, is beyond time :
His “time” (kairos) is always NOW.
And yet through time and history
is the presence of the Holy Spirit!
(Vatican II, Dei Verbum)
And God chooses to speak to us,
in this limited, human chronological time.
But do we listen?

7. Making time holy
Take a few minutes…and ask
yourself and your neighbors:
•
How can I make my time holy?
•
How do I make my time holy?

8. The Liturgical Year exerts
“a special sacramental power
and influence which strengthens
Christian life.”
(National Directory for Catechesis, 37A)

9. The Church, sanctifying the whole year

10. How the Calendar is Determined

Our calendar is arranged around the two
principal feasts of the Church:
Christmas (Celebrating the Incarnation)
Easter (Celebrating the Resurrection)

All seasons and dates are based on what day
of the week Christmas falls on, and the date of
Easter Sunday. This is publicly announced
each year on the Feast of the Epiphany.

11. How to tell when it’s Advent

Start with Christmas
(In 2013, Christmas is on a Wednesday)
then, count back to the previous Sunday.

IV Sunday in Advent: December 22
III Sunday in Advent (Gaudete Sunday): December 15
II Sunday in Advent: December 8
I Sunday in Advent
(The beginning of the Liturgical Year): December 1
Advent is LONGEST if Christmas is on a Sunday
Advent is SHORTEST if Christmas is on a Monday

12. Advent comes from the Latin adventus,
meaning "coming" or "arrival."
The focus of the entire season is the
celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ
in his First Advent, and the
anticipation of the return of Christ in
his Second Advent.

13. In the Fourth and Fifth Centuries A.D.,
Advent was a preparation not for
Christmas…but for Epiphany.
Epiphany was set aside as an
opportunity for new Christians to be
baptized. Believers spent 40 days
examining their hearts and doing
penance – just like Lent.

14. Pope St. Gregory the Great (d. 604)
was the real architect of Advent.
He fixed the season at four weeks,
and composed the seasonal prayers that
we are familiar with today.

15. By the Sixth Century, Christians began
linking this season to the coming of
Christ. But the "coming" that was
celebrated was not the infancy of Jesus,
but His Second Coming.
In the Middle Ages, though, the Church
began using Advent to prepare to
celebrate Christ's birth.

16. More about Advent

Color for Advent is VIOLET,
a “regal” color of expectation

On the Advent Wreath: Light one candle for
each week of Advent, beginning on Saturday
evening (the vigil).

Three Violet candles, one Rose
(“Purple” and “Pink” are NOT liturgical
colors!!)

17. More about Advent

The Rose candle is lit on the third week as a
sign of celebration (Gaudete, Latin for
“rejoice!”) since Advent is more than half over

The “wreath” is a circle, which represents
God, who is eternal. Evergreens are used for
the same symbolic purpose

“First” Readings for the season come from
Isaiah: descriptions of the “End Times” and
the Messiah

18. CHRISTMAS: The First Feast




Celebrates the Incarnation (“being made into flesh”)
and birth of Jesus
Since the 3rd Century AD, occurs on December 25
This date was set because the Roman Empire
celebrated the winter solstice (“birth” of the sun out
of winter darkness), so when the Empire became
Christian, it celebrated the birth of Jesus on this day
One day feast, with an octave (the feast day itself
and seven more days of feasting = eight days).
The only other feast with an “octave” is Easter.

19. CHRISTMAS: The First Feast




Color in church: White (and usually gold)
Traditional celebration of Christmas occurred at
“Midnight Mass,” but earlier vigils now happen
Gospel of Luke: Account of the birth of Jesus
NOTE: Santa Claus is actually associated with
St. Nicholas (sant niklaas), whose feast is December 6.
 It was “moved” to Christmas for “commercial reasons.”
Imagine that!

20. CHRISTMAS: The Season





Starts on the Vigil Mass celebrated on December 24,
not the day after Thanksgiving!
The time after Christmas continues to celebrate the
birth of Jesus
One or two weeks (originally “12 days”)
Celebration on New Year’s Day marks the Octave:
Mary, the Mother of God (January 1)
Traditionally goes from Christmas to the Feast of
Epiphany (usually January 6)

21. EPIPHANY: The Next Feast






aka “Three Kings Day”
Celebrates the visit of the Magi (in Matthew)
Traditionally on January 6 (the last day of the
“Twelve days of Christmas”)
One day feast
Color in Church: White/Gold
In many countries and in Europe, this day – not
Christmas – is the “gift giving day” (Italy: la Befana)

22. Feast of the Baptism of the Lord





Celebrates the baptism of the adult
Jesus by John in the Jordan River,
marking the beginning of Christ’s
public ministry
The Sunday after Epiphany,
and a one day feast
Color in Church: White/Gold
Officially ends the Christmas season
The First Week of Ordinary Time (I) begins on
the following day

23. Where are the Themes?







Songs – Music
Light – Darkness
Color – Purple (blue), Pink (white)
Symbols
Rituals
Special Biblical Stories
Special Prayers
 All are inter-related to nurture spiritual understanding,
meaning, depth, engagement and for on-going conversion.

24. The season of Advent has a twofold
character. It is a time of preparation for
Christ when the first coming of God’s Son
to men is recalled. It is also a season when
minds are directed by this memorial to
Christ's second coming at the end of time.
It us thus a SEASON OF JOYFUL
EXPECTATION.
(General Norms for the Liturgical Year, 39)

25. How are Christians to enter into the
Season of Advent?

26. Advent Spirituality: Renewal
History (past) --Present (today) --Future (destiny w/God)

27. Theological “Advents” of Christ



All sorts of “comings” in scripture
 Annunciation
 Wedding at Cana
 Road to Emmaus
People are transformed as Jesus is revealed to them
and to all in a new way
These are called “little advents” of Christ!

28. Think about your own “little advents”
How does Christ come to you
in your life, as you know it right now?

29. All sacraments are visible outward signs
of the presence of Christ working in
our community.

30. Non-liturgical advents take place in the
kindness of strangers, the generosity of
friends, or the support of loved ones.

31. “Advent means that every person
and every Christian is and should be
an advent person - not just in this part
of the church year, but also in his or
her entire life…

32. “This means being a person who
cooperatively enacts the one and final
movement of the world and history
toward God’s arrival in it in
freedom, in faith, hope, and love.”
(Karl Rahner)

33. A call to engage one’s vocation,
one’s relationships,
one’s hope,
one’s life in God,
in an active presence, a „holy waiting‟.

34. What does “holy waiting”
look like in the liturgical life?
Your life?
Prepare the way of the Lord; make straight his paths.”
(Mark 1:3)

35. Advent can transform the body of
Christ into a living, acting,
and awaiting society!
How?

36. The challenge of Advent is
steering hearts and minds away
from the commercialism and
secularization of Christmas
and into “waiting in joyful hope
for the coming of our savior,
Jesus Christ.”