To Fall in Love
The Christian community in which we were born and brought up "has promised you to Christ, the only spouse, to present you to him as a pure virgin” (2 Cor 11:2). She wants to let us know him. She knows that if we discover his true face, we will remain seduced. For this, in a liturgical cycle of three years, she makes us contemplate him from four different perspectives.
In the year ‘C,’ Luke—the sensitive evangelist who is also attentive to the needs of the poor—highlights the episodes in which one sees Jesus' tenderness toward the last, the marginalized, the excluded, and the sinners.
John, the fourth evangelist, intervenes during all three years, especially in Lent and Easter time. He teaches us that Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven, the light of the world, and the source from which the water of life flows.
They are four different and complementary angles, all necessary if we want "our hearts comforted, closely united in love and reaching out to a rich and perfect intelligence, toward a deeper knowledge of Christ" (Col 2:2).
After a liturgical cycle, another will follow, then another, until the good Lord will take us back to him. The four evangelists will help us to grasp all the features of the face of Christ. They will make us discover the fascinating details. One day we will exclaim with joy: "My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you" (Job 42:5). It will be the day when we will feel really in love with him.
ADVENT AND CHRISTMAS
To fulfill the mission of “spreading the knowledge of him everywhere, like an aroma” (2 Cor 2:14), the Church has divided the year into parts—called liturgical seasons—where each part has a big feast as a reference point.
The year is so marked by a succession of festivals that are meant to make us contemplate, one by one, all the aspects of the mystery of Christ ‘from the Incarnation to the Nativity until the Ascension, to Pentecost and to the waiting for the blessed hope of the return of the Lord’ (SC 102).
Christmas and Advent
While the civil year begins on January 1, the liturgical season follows another calendar. It starts with the First Sunday of Advent. It seems logical that the events of a character's life are presented from the day of his birth.
But it was not so from the beginning of the Church. In the first century, Christians had no other feast outside of the weekly celebration of the resurrection of the Lord. On the first day of the week—which until Constantine continued to be called the day of the sun and was a working day—they used to meet to hear the Word of God, celebrate the Eucharist, and, in the early years, to share a meal. Then they would go back to their homes, bidding each other goodbye until they met the following Sunday again.
Not many years passed, and the Church felt the need to dedicate a day to commemorate the culminating events of the life of Jesus; and for this, Easter was instituted. By the half of the second century, this feast had already spread in all the Christian communities. However, only a day to celebrate the resurrection of Christ seemed not adequate; it was thought then to prolong the joy of this feast for seven weeks, the fifty days of Pentecost.
The celebration of Christmas came into the Christian calendar much later. In 354 A.D., December 25 was set to commemorate the birth of Jesus. —We know neither the exact date nor the exact year of Jesus’ birth as no document of the registry office of Nazareth was found. The choice of December 25 comes from the fact that the winter solstice and the approach of spring were celebrated in Rome on this day. It was a festival celebrated with irrepressible joy because the sun was beginning to shine.
In the first centuries, the Church used to reinterpret, rather than suppress, the rites and pagan ceremonies. So it was that the Christians, instead of banning crusades against the licentiousness of the Saturnalia, changed the name and meaning of the feast of the unconquered sun. They said: Jesus “comes from on high as a rising sun, shining on those who live in darkness and the shadow of death” (Lk 1:78-79); he is “the true Light that enlightens everyone” (Jn 1:9) and “the radiant Morning Star” (Rev 22:16).
The artist who made the first Christian mosaic in Rome—the mausoleum of the Julii, in the cemetery of the Vatican (250 a.D.)—which depicts Christ on the sun's chariot, understood the connection to the pagan festival.
Around the year 600 A.D., Christians believed that the celebration of Christmas was to be preceded by a time of preparation. Thus, the Sundays of Advent were born. Therefore, it was decided to begin the liturgical year with the first of these Sundays, at the end of November or early December.
What Does Advent Mean?
For the pagans, the festival indicated the coming of their god. On a specific day of the year, they exhibited his statue for worship. They were convinced that he would make himself present amidst his faithful, ready to bless and grant them favors. The word Advent also referred to the visit of a king to a city or the day of the king’s coronation.
The Christians adopted this practice to the coming of their God into the world, who manifested himself in Jesus. However, they reserved the term Advent for the period dedicated to the preparation for this visit.
At this point, someone might rightly ask: but has not Jesus already come? Why then prepare as if he has to come again at another time?
Christmas is the birthday of Jesus, and Advent is the time to prepare for it. Following the pagans’ practice, we prepare ourselves for the feast of the unconquered sun.
God's Ways Are Not Our Ways
You may expect a friend’s visit but, in the end, you may not meet him if you are waiting for him in the wrong place or at the wrong time.
It also happens with God. He has already come many times in human history. He showed us where we could meet him, but perhaps we waited for him where he did not come.
I tried to list a few places where we usually expect him: we would like him to be in our sickness to give us health; during economic difficulties to resolve them by a fluke; in moments of solitude to make us meet the person who comforts us; in failure to help us re-emerge and triumph; when there’s an injustice to enforce our rights; during old age to restore a bit of vigor, freshness, and clarity of youth… We pray to him intensely; we try to introduce him to our narrow horizons, to involve him in our projects; we ask him not to miss the appointment. However, we scan the horizon, and he does not seem to show up. He disappoints us, displaces us, and almost always disorients us.
At Birkenau, on a Christmas Day, a group of women was led to the gas chamber. They attempted to escape but were slaughtered en masse. Faced with this scene, the son of a rabbi cries: ‘God, show them your power; everything is against you.’ Nothing happens. The boy then exclaims: ‘God does not exist!’ We ask God to show his power, and he appears on a cross; we want to be victorious with him and for him, and he chooses defeat.
He never comes to fit our dreams but to realize his. It is not easy for us to find an appointment with him and understand the way, time, and purpose of his coming. It is necessary to examine ourselves, be careful, check, and screen our hopes and expectations to see if they align with what he offers us.
In the darkness of the primeval chaos, God came to bring his light (Gen 1:1-2). On the night of infertility, he came to Abraham to offer his covenant and promise him descendants, as numerous as the stars of heaven (Gen 15). “While all was in quiet silence and the night was in the middle of its course” (Wis 18:14), he visited his people and freed them from the bondage of Pharaoh.
He comes to illuminate our nights; he comes in that moment of loss and pain, alienation and despair, humiliation and abandonment, and introduces us to his peace. He particularly comes in that darkness produced by the incense that we burn on the altar of our idols—those senseless materials we worship—money, success, health, children, scholarship, relationships…
They prevent us from living; they claim, demand, condition, and assail up to deprive us of sleep and breathing. We suffer, and we struggle, but we remain loyal to those chains that keep us enslaved. Jesus comes to set us free, but we have to get ready and wait for him on the streets he would usually show up.