| #4 | Liturgy Update |
With the First Sunday of Advent, we begin a new liturgical year. During the weeks and months to come, the story of salvation will unfold before us once again in all its mystery and beauty, “ever ancient, ever new.” How blessed we are to be part of it! Happy New Year!
Like Lent, Advent is a time set apart for especially intense prayer and preparation. In Lent, we prepare by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to celebrate the Sacred Triduum of the Lord. In Advent, we prepare to celebrate Christmas, the first coming of Jesus; and simultaneously we meditate on his second coming at the end of time. This double purpose of the Advent season comes through clearly in the second preface of Advent (which we will hear beginning December 17th):
His future coming was proclaimed by all the prophets.
The virgin mother bore him in her womb
with love beyond all telling.
John the Baptist was his herald
and made him known when at last he came.
In his love Christ has filled us with joy
as we prepare to celebrate his birth,
so that when he comes he may find us watching in prayer,
our hearts filled with wonder and praise.
This beautiful prayer challenges us to greet the second coming of the Lord Jesus as joyfully as we greet the coming of Christmas each year. And that’s quite a challenge! Because the second coming, we know, will be different from the first. In the words of the fourth century bishop and saint Cyril of Jerusalem: “At the first coming he was wrapped in swaddling clothes in a manger. At his second coming he will be clothed in light as in a garment. His first coming was to fulfill his plan of love, to teach people by gentle persuasion. This time, whether they like it or not, all will be subjects of his kingdom by necessity.”
But there is another second coming to which we can look in this Advent season—one much closer to home than that final coming in power and glory. As St. Charles Borromeo told his flock in an Advent homily nearly 500 years ago, “Beloved, Christ, who came once in the flesh, is prepared to come again. When we remove all obstacles to his presence he will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts, bringing with him the riches of his grace. Our loving mother the Church uses this holy season to teach us through hymns and canticles, voice and ritual. She shows us how grateful we should be for so great a blessing, and how to gain its benefit: our hearts should be as much prepared for the coming of Christ as if he were still to come into this world.”
Getting into DetailsThe special character of this Advent season is marked by a number of changes in the liturgy. As in Lent, violet vestments are worn. The Gloria is omitted, so that “on the night of Christmas the angels’ song may ring out once again in all its newness” (from the Church’s Commentary on the Liturgical Year). At St. James, procession routes, music, decorations all change dramatically during Advent, so that every aspect of the liturgy—what we hear, what we see, what we do—may remind us of our Advent call to “watch and be ready”! Throughout the season of Advent, ministers prepare for the procession in the Cathedral Chapel. We process in to the Cathedral through the South Sacristy and the East Apse. Some of the ministers then accompany the presider as he proceeds to the rear of the North Transept for the Lighting of the Advent Wreath. At the end of Mass, the procession moves around the altar from south to west to north, and then leads the ministers back to the Cathedral Chapel through the East Apse and Sacristy. And, as if this wasn’t enough already, the leaders of your ministries will be able to give you even more details! |
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