Welcome to Advent !

As we begin our Advent journey together, it might be helpful to put some context around how we celebrate these next four weeks.

The General Norms of the Liturgical Year is a good place to start: Advent has a twofold character: as a season to prepare for Christmas when Christ’s first coming to us is remembered; as a season when that remembrance directs the mind and heart to await Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time. Advent is thus a period for devout and joyful expectation.

This change is most evident on the 3^rd and 4^th Sundays of Advent, where the liturgical emphasis moves from the second coming of Christ at the end of time to the specific focus on a tiny part of the Roman Empire in the 1^st Century, where something happened that most of us are still trying to fathom. When Grace became flesh, and God spoke an undeniable ‘Yes’ to the human condition.      

During Mass in this season of Advent, you may notice a few changes.

The Introductory Rite is different. After the Entrance Song and Greeting, we light the Advent candle; we have a spoken Penitential Rite; we sing another refrain of the Entrance Song and then we move straight to the Collect (the Opening Prayer). There is no Gloria during Advent.

Silence is also a focus of Advent. We need to understand that silence is not the absence of something happening. Rather, it is done intentionally. We teach our children ‘mindfulness’ and ‘stillness’ at school, yet we Christians often fail to practise that centuries-old tradition of silence. When we are silent after the Readings, it is to let the Word sink deeper and bend our minds and hearts. Don’t be worried that the musicians have fallen asleep! They will start the Psalm or Gospel acclamation after a period of silence.

As Pope Francis writes:

Silence is not an inner haven in which to hide oneself in some sort of intimate isolation. Liturgical silence is something much more grand: it is a symbol of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit who animates the entire action of the celebration. Silence moves (us) to sorrow for sin and the desire for conversion. It awakens a readiness to hear the Word and awakens prayer. It disposes us to adore the Body and Blood of Christ. It suggests to each one, in the intimacy of communion, what the Spirit would effect in our lives to conform us to the Bread broken. For all these reasons we are called to enact with extreme care the symbolic gesture of silence. (Desiderio Desideravi 52)

This intentional use of silence is something we should be doing at every Mass. Not just in Advent. However, this Advent might be a great chance to get better at it!

Advent is also the season that we practise expectant waiting. The use of our silences before Mass starts, after the Readings, and after the Homily, will add to this expectancy.

Advent is not a passive waiting. In our Liturgical silence and waiting, perhaps the Word can move us and shake us into action. To volunteer at Vinnies or to help our Friday night BBQ. To call in on a neighbour who is grieving. To phone our sibling that we haven’t spoken to for so long.

Our Advent waiting is unlike what we see around us. We Christians wait for something radically different to the consumerism and individualism that is so prevalent at this time. We wait for the promise that the valleys will be raised, and the mountains made low! Where power and privilege will be used for their proper purpose – to raise up the lowly and create a straight path. When we will lose the world and gain our lives!

So let us together await……….

Stella Maris Parish Office

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