ADVENT.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 48, 29 November 1900, Page 3

ADVENT.

ITS STORY AND ITS SYMBOLISM.

On Sunday next, December 2, the Advent season begins. The name is given by the Church to the period, of between three and four weeks from Advent Sunday (which is always the Sunday nearest to the feast of St. Andrew) to Christmas eve. During it she desires that hex children should practise fasting, works of penance, meditation, and prayer, in order to prepare themselves for celebrating worthily the coming (adrentum) of the Son of God in the flesh, to promote his spiritual advent within their own souls, and to school themselves to look forward with hope and joy to his second advent, when he shall come again to judge mankind. It is impossible to fix the precise time when the season of Advent began to be observed. A canon of a Council at Saragossa, in 380, forbade the faithful to absent themselves from the Church services during the three weeks from December 17th to the Epiphany ; this is perhaps the earliest trace on record of the observance of Advent. The singing of the 'greater antiphons' at Vespers is commenced, according to the Roman ritual, on the very day specified by the Council of Saragossa : this can hardly be a mere coincidence. In the fifth century Advent seems to have been assimilated to Lent, and kept as a time of fasting and abstinence for 40 days, or even longer— i.e. from Martinmas (Nov. 1 1) to Christmas eve. In the Sacramentary of Gregory the Great there are Masses for five Sundays in Advent; but about the ninth century these were reduced to four, and so they have ever since remained. 1 We may therefore consider the present discipline of the observance of Advent as having lasted a thousand years, at least as far as the Church of Rome is concerned.' With regard to fasting and abstinence during Advent, the practice has always greatly varied, and still varies, in different parts of the Church. Strictness has been observed, after which came a period of relaxation, followed by a return to strictness At the present time, the Wednesdays acd Fridays in Advent are observed as fast days by English and Irish Catholics . but in France and other Continental countries the ancient discipline has long ago died out, except among religious communities. In Australia, New Zealand, and the United States the general rule for fast and abstinence is only on Friday. All nuptial solemnities or festivals are prohibited during Advent. There is a marvellous beauty in the offices and rites of the Church during this season. The lesson?, generally taken from the prophecies of Isaias, remind us how the desire and expectation, not of Israel only, but of all nations, carried forward the thoughts of mankind, before the time of Jesus Christ, to a Redeemer one day to be revealed ; they also strike the note of preparation, watchfulness, compunction, hope. In the Gospels we hear of the terrors of the la3t judgment, that second advent which those who despise the first will not escape ; of the witness borne by John the Precursor, and of the ' mighty works ' by which the Saviour's life supplied a solid foundation and justification for that witness. At Vespers, the seven greater antiphons, or anthems— beginning on December 17th, the first of the seven greater Ferias preceeding Christmas cve — are a noteworthy feature of the liturgical year. They are called the Ob of Advent, on account of the manner in which they commence • they are all addressed to Christ ; and they are doublt— that is. they are sung entire both before and after the Magnificat. Of the first, O Sapisntia, qua- ex orr AltimmiproJusti, etc., a trace still remains in the words O Sapient ia printed in the calendar of the Anglican Prayer Book opposite December 16— words which probably not one person in 10,000 using the Prayer Book understands. The purple hue of penance is the only color used in the services of Advent, except on the feasts of saints. In many other points Advent reBembles Lent : during its continuance, in Masses de Tempore, the Gloria in e.vcclsn is suppressed, the organ is pilent. the deacon sings Benedicamut Domino at the end of Mass instead of Jfr Minna i-xt and marriages are not solemnised. On the other hand, the Alh Ima, the word of gladness, is only once or twice interrupted during Advent, and the organ finds its voice on the third Sunday ; the Church, by these vestiges of joy, signifying that the assured expectation of a Redeemer whose birth she will soon celebrate fills her heart, and checkers the gloom of her mourning with these gleams of brightness.