In the Church’s liturgical year, we commemorate three comings of the Lord: the first is His coming in the flesh as man, the second is His coming in majesty and glory (in an “already but not yet” kind of way), and the third is His coming to us in grace. Our Savior described this third form of His coming this way: “Whoever loves Me will keep My word and My Father will love him and we will come to him and make Our abode with him” (Jn 14:23). This is a good jumping off point for us as we enter into this special season of Advent. In Advent, we focus our attention on the Lord’s coming into our lives. What, then, does Advent mean for us? Fr. Pius Parsch puts it this way:
Adventus Domini means ‘the coming of the Lord;’ Advent accordingly is a time of preparation, a time of holy desire, longing and expectancy. If bodily food is to nourish us, we must feel hunger. Thus, too, we ought to hunger for God’s grace. According to a fundamental law of God’s Kingdom, God will not force His grace upon one who is already with to satisfaction: ‘The hungry He fills with good things, and the rich He sends away empty’ (Luke 1:53). To make us worthy of the grace of redemption, Holy Mother Church wants us to experience spiritual hunger and the need for redemption during these next four weeks. How, we may ask, does the Church arouse this spiritual hunger in our souls? In this she is a master. In spirit she places us before the first coming of Christ that we may experience vicariously in the sacred drama of the Liturgy the spiritual desire and longing of certain most noble souls. At the same time, she gives us a glimpse into the pedagogy by which God once prepared mankind for their Redeemer” (Parsch, The Church’s Year of Grace, 18-19)
In other words, during Advent each year the Sacred Liturgy “transports” us to the First Coming of our Lord (at Christmas), in order to kindle anew in our souls a holy longing for His Second Coming (at the end of time), which is sustained by our daily hunger for His Third Coming (in grace, through the gift of His Holy Spirit). As the prayers of the Mass unfold, as the Scriptures are proclaimed, the more consciously and actively we enter into this spirit of anticipation taught us in the Liturgy, the more fruitfully we will experience the joy and peace of this season.
This season perhaps lends itself more readily to this notion of conscious participation in the Sacred Liturgy. One of the fundamental principles of the Second Vatican Council was the concept of participatio actuosa (“actual participation”) on the part of every member of the Body of Christ. Unfortunately, this concept has been reduced to the idea of “participation through action”, i.e. “through doing things at Mass”. This has led to the erroneous notion that, in order to be involved at Mass, I need a job. What this fails to recognize is that we all come to Mass with the same job: to worship God in Spirit and in Truth. In fact, it is possible for one to participate more perfectly in the Mass if he is spiritually attuned to the reality of the Liturgy yet remains in the pew, than if someone were to perform manifold tasks all-the-while being interiorly absent (either through mortal sin or simple negligence) from the Sacred Action taking place. More than demanding the creation of “stuff for people to do” at Mass, actual participation is a challenge for each one to interiorly align himself to the Spirit of the Liturgy and personally appropriate the truths, the sentiments, the realities unfolding before our eyes whenever we celebrate the Holy Mass. Every word, even the words spoken by the priest alone, can become the words of each one if each one assents in his heart, mind, and soul to the words or action taking place. With this in mind, I would challenge all of us to try and enter more interiorly into the Sacred Mysteries we celebrate at Holy Mass during Advent, with the intention of opening ourselves more fully to the coming of the Lord’s Grace into our lives. This Season affords us some of my favorite liturgical texts, most especially the communion antiphon for the Second Sunday of Advent: “Jerusalem, arise and stand upon the heights, and behold the joy which comes to you from God.” This antiphon, with its beautifully somber, chant-like melody, informs us during reception of Holy Communion that the One we approach in the Most Blessed Sacrament is our life’s joy, the One Who comes to us from the Father. If we interiorly align ourselves with these words, our experience of Holy Communion becomes that much richer, and we begin to see how the Liturgy can teach us to be more open and ready to meet the Lord when He comes. Because in reality, the Lord comes to us at every Mass, and because He does so, we have everything we need to be filled with joy and peace at all times. May God bless you in the week ahead, and may Mother Mary lead you more deeply into the Sacred and Merciful Heart of Jesus. I remain,
Affectionately Yours in Christ,
Fr. Hess
