This coming Sunday is the first Sunday in Advent and the first Sunday of the new liturgical year, Cycle A, in which the Gospel of Matthew is the anchor text for the next 12 months. The readings are not very “Chrismassy” nor are they intended to be. Advent is a different season. Advent has a two-fold character: as a season to prepare our hearts for Christmas when Christ’s first coming is remembered with joy and 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 of devout and joyful expectation with an element of repentance as part of the preparation.

The readings for the First Sunday of Advent serve as a transition from the celebrations of Christ the King Sunday into the new year. The readings are replete with a strong theme of “staying awake” and being “prepared” for the days to come when the promises to Israel will be fulfilled.

This text is part of the fifth discourse in Matthew (24:1-25:46), which centers on the coming of the Son of Man – and that does not necessarily imply “end times” as in end-of-the-world. The theme for the 1st Sunday in Advent (for all three years) is preparedness – in the everyday of life as well as for the end of life. What is common to all times is the victory of the reign of God.

The History of the Development of Advent

The development of a liturgical season preparatory to Christmas is Western in its origins and celebration. It is not known when the period of preparation for Christmas called Advent began, but we have a sense of the dual origins of the themes/focus of Advent: the end time and the second coming of Christ, as well as preparing for the celebration of Christmas, the commemoration of the first coming of Christ.

Our first accounts of Advent come from Spain and Gaul. In the canons of the Synod of Saragossa (380), the laity are reminded of their obligation to be in church on a daily basis from December 17 through January 6. This does establish the practice of Advent worship, but affirms and re-emphasizes the importance of the period of preparation that was already in practice

In 5th century Gaul we hear of an ascetical fast of three days a week beginning on or near St. Martin of Tours’ feast day (November 11) and extending to Christmas. While fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays was an ancient Christian tradition (Didache, 1st century), the addition of Monday appears to mark off the season of Advent. The ascetical fasting may possibly be a counter practice to the ribald celebrations leading up to the Roman festival of Saturnalia.

The Gallican fast, on the other hand, may have found its origins in the Celtic monastic practice of triannual forty-day fasts, a practice which soon became mandatory for laity also. In Gaul, the season of Advent (varying from four to six weeks) took on a penitential dimension paralleling the early medieval Lent, with the use of the color purple, the dropping of the Gloria and the Alleluia from eucharistic liturgies, and the dropping of the Te Deum from the liturgy of the hours. The adoption of Celtic penitential practices and the rising emphasis on judgment at the parousia provide emphasis to the Gallican season of Advent, exemplified by the sequence Dies Irae (Day of Wrath), a hymn composed for the beginning of Advent.

In Rome, the origins of Advent seem to be a combination of Gallican influence and indigenous tradition. There is already evidence of a pre-Christmas fast at the end of the 4th century in Rome, a fast that may not have any relation to Christmas. Also related to the time of year but perhaps originally independent of Christmas are the Ember days, quarterly fast times of recollection. Gregory the Great (late 6th century) witnesses a liturgical tradition of four Sunday Masses and three Ember day Masses in preparation for Christmas, which stresses the coming commemoration rather than the judgment themes seen in the Gallican tradition. In the 7th century, the composition of the poetic “O Antiphons” exemplifies this preparation for the solemnity of the nativity, and by the 8th and 9th centuries, the sacramentaries reveal the position of Advent at the beginning of the church year, replacing Christmas as the head of liturgical new year. The liturgical traditionalism of Rome made itself felt in the widespread adoption of the Roman four week Advent (replacing the longer Gallican and Spanish Advents) but by the 12th century Rome was influenced by the penitential aspects of the Galilean Advent and dropped the Gloria from the Mass, retaining the Alleluia as a vestige of an earlier non-penitential approach to Advent.

Since approximately the 13th century, the usual liturgical color in Western Christianity for Advent has been violet. On the third Sunday of Advent, Gaudete Sunday, rose may be used instead, referencing the rose used on Laetare Sunday, the fourth Sunday of Lent. A rose coloured candle in Western Christianity is referenced as a sign of joy (Gaudete) lit on the third Sunday of Advent.

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