Adventus: “Come, Lord”

Adventus: Mary and the waiting for the Lord in Advent

In the Church of the first centuries, the celebration of Easter was dominated by the expectation of the definitive manifestation of the Lord. The paschal vigil went on late into the night. Only at that moment could the eucharistic liturgy begin. Thus the Risen One appears among his own in a sacramental way, like the morning sun that symbolically announces a day without end. This expectation of the second coming of Christ was one of the characteristics of ancient Christian religiosity, hence the invocation “Maranatha! Come, Lord” (Rev. 22:17, 20).

In the ancient pagan conception, the divinity was revealed on a specific day of the year, on which it dwelt in the temple. In this way, the presence or coming which in Latin is pronounced adventus, became the visit of the emperor, his birthday or feast, which was celebrated as if it were his return. 

Christian Advent points to Christmas and to the Epiphany, which must be seen together, as feasts that complement each other. The Greek word epiphany expresses the aspect of manifestation of this coming. These feasts have neither the antiquity nor the importance of Easter. But when they appear, in the fourth century, after the Constantinian freedom, they spread rapidly in the West and in the East, though with different characteristics and sensibilities. In the struggle against Arianism, which denied the divine sonship of Jesus, Christmas became the feast of the dogma of the divinity of Christ, as it was defined at the Council of Nicaea (325), and its celebration amounted to the triumph of orthodoxy.

Advent, being a Christian word, but of pagan origin, initially designated the anniversary of the birth of Christ and his manifestation, his return or his visit. At the beginning, in accordance with the meaning of the word, Advent did not stand for the preparation, but for the feast itself. It is by this word (adventus Domini) that Christmas is designated in the homilies of the Fathers, in the prayers of the ancient sacramentaries, and in the first Christian calendars.

In the liturgical celebration there are three dimensions of history: the memory of the past, the mystery celebrated in the present, and the anticipation of the future. In this case, there overlap the expectation of the birth of Christ, lived for many years by the people of God, his true birth, or incarnation, and his glorious manifestation at the final fulfillment of history (parousia). It is necessary to highlight this threefold dimension of Advent, so that we do not run the risk of impoverishing its meaning by reducing it to sentimentality about the birth of the Child Jesus.

Historically, the birth of Jesus would have been prepared from the Old Testament onward. Such a celebration attained a psychological effect that supplanted the feast of Easter. The mystery of Christmas required a preparation, but one that never managed to make this season a parallel to the preparation for Easter, in which we have Lent. Although they are two celebrations that are very important for Christianity, they have different meanings, in view of the joy of the Resurrection that runs through Advent. 

The history of Advent is complex and even obscure, for it has no single birthplace, arising almost at the same time and with different characteristics in each region. It is impossible to follow its history in the Western Church. Nevertheless, its eschatological character must be recognized, in view of the expectation of the final manifestation of Christ. This meaning gradually faded because of the growth of the view of Christmas as the feast of the birth of Jesus. So that the eschatological dimension might be recovered, the liturgical reform established its eschatological aspect in the first two weeks. And in the following weeks, the Christmas dimension of the feast, of the birth and incarnation of Jesus and, consequently, his manifestation at the Epiphany. 

It can thus be affirmed that the state and the situation of Advent are permanent: the Church lives a perpetual Advent until the Lord comes. The mystery of Advent coincides with the mystery of history, which reveals itself as the manifestation of the judgment of God upon the world. Indeed, waiting and hope constitute the distinctive trait of the Christian faith. For Adrienne von Speyr, “as time passes, the imminent coming becomes ever more perceptible to the Mother. At the same time, she sees men ever more clearly in the light of the redemption that is to come. For her, everything that the Son will one day accomplish is now contained in her and, therefore, she shares in a very intimate way in all that is coming. But Mary does not ponder this fact, but only what the Son will do. She is only a starting point that gathers itself in view of the self-giving, which she awaits in the fulfillment of God. And precisely this waiting is her way of sharing in the fulfillment”.

Consequently, the waiting for the coming of the Lord is made firm to the extent that we live it with the expectant faith of Mary, trusting in the full realization and manifestation of God in time. 

In Advent, Mary is the model of prayerful waiting. To explore in greater depth the role of Mary in the liturgy of Advent, read the apostolic exhortation Marialis Cultus of Paul VI.

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