The Catholic Imagination

Practical Theology for the Liturgical Year

Abbate

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781621892069
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Designed primarily for the layperson, The Catholic Imagination is a journey through the liturgical year by way of weekly reflections on the life of the church. Through reading, thinking, and discussion, the religious imagination is stimulated and structured so the reader can reflect and act upon the richness of our faith to enter into a relationship with God. Reflections on the lives of the saints, their writings, their meaning for our times, the importance and value of creation and the natural world, the significance of the sacraments, sacramental devotions, and the timelessness of the gospel message encourage the reader to coordinate their actions with the weekly topic. Ideas on the church's artistic environment and related Scripture enhance the written materials. Special supplements are provided for Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter, due to their importance in the life of the church. Just as we repeat the themes of the liturgical year over and over again, simple little lessons and readings like this go a long way in the continuing education of the lay Catholic with their straightforward message and inspirational writing style that capture the faith.

1

Advent and the Christmas Season

The Advent Wreath over the baptismal font and Mary as the center

An Overview

Advent is that period of joyful anticipation that precedes Christmas and marks the beginning of the liturgical year. As the Western calendar comes to an end, the church year begins. Advent consists of the four Sundays and the time between that lead up to the great feast of Christmas, the nativity of Jesus. Consideration of Advent should encompass the liturgical environment, its Sundays and feast days, Gospels, and the hallmark themes of joyful anticipation, atonement, almsgiving, and adoration. Let us begin the journey of Advent that is beginning of the journey of our faith.

The Liturgical Environment:
Adveniat regnum tuum—Thy kingdom come

This week, the familiar liturgical environment of comforting green is transformed from the dual vibrancy and dryness of autumn to a new period of expectancy. It is the end of the calendar year but the beginning of the liturgical one as we await the coming of the Messiah. Advent, that special pre-Christmas period whose meaning is “to come,” heralds both the birth of Christ in history, his Second Coming at the end of time, and his continual rebirth daily into our lives

Decoratively to crown this holy season is the Advent wreath, positioned variously in churches, suitably suspended over the baptismal font, the focus of our life in Christ, or over the altar, the rock of our salvation. All eyes turn to it at the start of Mass and when one enters the church. Simple yet regal, it is adorned with hopeful blue-violet and pink ribbons and candles, reflective of the winter skies and hopeful anticipation that will count down the weeks to Christmas and mark where we are in the preparation of our hearts for the joyous event of the nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

The appropriateness of incense continues as a central liturgical element giving pleasing praise to God in its ascent. New aromas of rich balsam, pine and fir, along with frankincense and myrrh are introduced, reminiscent of ancient times when incense was a gift for kings and God. The verdant green vestments, banners, and altar cloths of the thirty plus weeks of Ordinary Time now change to a bluish purple distinguished from the darker reddish purple of Lent, embellished with symbols such as a radiant star or a candle, proclaiming this as special time of the light within the darkness. Words such as “O Come Emmanuel” or “Prepare Ye,” may be proclaimed across them—words of hope and welcome or preparatory repentance needed to see God.

Gift giving starts now not just at Christmas. Baskets are stationed in the sanctuary, or entry or at the foot of the altar for offerings of food for the needy of our community. There is no holiday from hunger. Perhaps hunger and the discrepancies of wealth and poverty are more poignantly exacerbated at this time of celebration. Within God’s house we can try to end it at least for a time during the season of giving, and recommit ourselves beyond the season to caring for these lowly who have an especial kinship with God.

The empty crib stationed beneath a crucified Christ, at the foot of the paschal candle, or the footsteps of the sanctuary invite us to meditate. He was born into the world to suffer and die for us. The cross is where the Christmas story is leading but it won’t stop there for there is reason to hope. He came into the world to rise and give us life again by redeeming us from sin and restoring the right relationships between each other and God.

Just as the empty crib will be filled with the miracle of love of the Incarnation, we can fill it with the radiance and warmth of our belief, forgiveness, and love. Adorn it with baby food, blankets, diapers, and toys, gloves, hats, scarves and thermal clothing, socks and sweatshirts for the aged, or the needs of the community. Most of all, fill it with quiet joy, love, and yearning, gifts befitting Jesus and his presence in all, especially the little ones we must be to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Advent Awareness: Truly,
this was the Son of God!(Matt 27:54)

It is Advent. Something has changed. Our sense of self and possibility is renewed; hope has been restored. It is a time of waiting that requires patience. We anticipate the Second Coming of Christ just as the Chosen People awaited the Messiah. Perhaps we are not unlike them? Have we become impatient, complacent, like them? Do we want immediate gratification and are unwilling to sacrifice, suffer, pray and conform our lives to the Gospel? The choice is ours. We don’t live in the time of the prophets like the Chosen People in the Old Testament. Revelation has become flesh. The kingdom of heaven is not light-years away.

One of the Advent Gospels of the liturgical year B belongs to Mark. In Mark there is no mention of the nativity. As the shortest of the Gospels, his message is urgent beginning with the announcements of John the Baptist. It is a Gospel of miracles, mystery, and the public ministry of the human and divine Jesus. Now is a good to read the Gospel of Mark. It is an opportunity to meet and listen to God through his word. Did you know that you can receive a partial indulgence for reading the Bible so as the venerate God, and a plenary indulgence if you read it for one half hour? Do we care about these indulgences anymore or only about our own personal indulgences?

The season of Advent is one of hopeful anticipation. John has leapt in his mother’s womb. Mary awaits the holy birth of her son, and we remember the unborn who have been given the gift of life. Will we say yes to that miracle? Interestingly, the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas, and the unborn, is celebrated during this month too. Advent is a time of angelic proclamations. The angels have appeared to Mary and Joseph with the announcement that God will be made man and the angels will surround him at birth.

It is a season of actualization; a time for us to do some special things. The journey to Bethlehem is about to begin and it is not so far from Calvary. But first let us make room in the warmness of our hearts for the child that we will welcome at Christmas. We can make that room by emptying our hearts through atonement, almsgiving, and adoration. Then, offer up your emptiness, and like a Christmas stocking from a good father, it will be filled with more than we can imagine!

We may be more inclined to think of this time as the Christmas season than the Advent period. Christmas can bring lots of stress over traveling, preparing fancy meals, family gatherings, no money for gifts, and loss of loved ones. But the Advent season is hopeful, each week bringing us closer to God if we move methodically and trustfully in that direction. Begin Advent with awareness. Let the light from the Advent candles, the Gospel promise of Christ as the light of the world, and the pristine winter night make the important things clear to us.

*An indulgence is a full or partial remission of temporal punishment due for sins that have already been forgiven. The church grants the indulgence after the sinner has confessed and received absolution.

Mary in Advent:
Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus

Even as devote Catholics we can easily let the role of Mary become obscured in Advent with the cultural, commercial emphasis on Christmas. But throughout this time the church celebrates several important Marian feast days apart from her obvious role at Christmas as the mother of God. At the start of Advent two special feast days relevant to Mary in her capacity as a mother are commemorated—the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

December 8, one of the Holy Days of Obligation, is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This day recognizes Mary, the new Eve, as free from the stain of original sin from the moment of her conception, thus preparing her to become the mother of the Savior. December 12 is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Between December 9 and 12 in 1531, on a hill in Tepeyac close to Mexico City, Mary appeared to now canonized peasant Juan Diego. In the midst of winter she filled his cloak with roses and left behind her image imprinted on its rough cactus fiber as proof to the bishop of her apparition, and her desire that a church be built here so that the one true God would be with the people of his country.

In this only approved Marian apparition in North America, Mary is likewise lauded though understatedly, as Patroness of the Americas. She is a saint for our continents, one we need to remind us of the importance and respect deserving to mothers of the living and the unborn. While we can never approach her unequivocal “yes” to be the mother of God, we can try to emulate her grace-filled acquiescence by honoring her as the protector of the immortal souls of the unborn, just as she agreed to protect the unborn Jesus.

Yearly, the children of our churches can delight in watching the statues of Mary and Joseph, if they are placed throughout the church and rearranged weekly, on their way to the crèche. We can make that trip with Mary too by invoking her for our needs—indeed she wants to be called on. Some saints call Mary “the short cut to God” for as his mother he can refuse her nothing.

When the weeks pass and the feasts of Mary are gone, let us remember her central role in salvation history. She carried Christ in pregnancy beneath the cathedral of heart. Her immaculate heart and his sacred one are entwined for all eternity. Our yearning hearts can be enmeshed with theirs as well if we allow our hearts to be awakened through love of Jesus, the Christmas rose, the light of the world, through his holy mother, our mother Mary.

Gaudete Sunday, Advent Anticipation and Atonement: Lord, your love reaches to the heavens, your fidelity to the clouds (Ps 36:6)

Anticipation is mounting. Christmas is approaching. Will it be different this year? News reporters and financial experts say spending will be down and cutbacks will be made. Parents worry about gifts for the children that they feel define Christmas. “Should we get a new credit card to have a modest Christmas?” they call in to the nightly news shows. People discuss how they plan to make it different this year apart from cutting down on purchases. More hugs, sharing food, buying groceries for a poor neighbor, gathering together recounting stories, laughing at the good, and finding humor in the difficult are the resourceful and understanding answers.

We can be resilient because we were made in God’s image and likeness even if we don’t always mirror it. Maybe this can be a good old-fashioned Christmas when we aren’t intimidated to say the words “Merry Christmas” out loud, when food, family, friends, and faith are the focus over fancy and frivolous gifts, when simplicity and genuine warmth can keep out the cold and warm us more than any new coat or fireplace.

This Sunday is Gaudete Sunday; the Sunday of rejoicing in the midst of Advent for the Good News is here. In the northern hemisphere the days are the very shortest, but in two weeks when winter arrives the days will become longer, almost a contradiction. Just as the sun with its light and warmth will slowly return, so does the hope of creation, the son of God. The church environment reflects this joy in the dawn colors of pink and white flower buds and dusky rose vestments. We are rescued from the darkness of sin and restored to the birthright God intended for us before we allowed sin to grip us. The pink candle of the Advent wreath that is lit this week blushes in anticipation. The ecclesiastical liturgy mirrors the liturgy of the natural world. Creation is fulfilled through the hope of Jesus Christ, his Second Coming, and as Henri Nouwen, priest and theologian reminds us, the meaning of the Incarnation is that God is the God of the present moment. So until Easter, stubborn buds and cold spring flowers will push through the frozen earth one last time, a silent, hopeful reminder of the life dormant in what appears to have perished. Buy a Christmas cactus, an amaryllis bulb, a paperwhite or an orchid and watch it bloom. That is the nature of life!

Christmas is soon. It is a good time to receive the sacrament of reconciliation whose forgiving, living grace will nourish the bud of life in the soul longing to be a full-blown blossom. Birth is just around the corner in confession, recommitment to the cross, and Christmas.

Repentance and Gaudete Sunday:
Rejoice and be glad (Alternative Version)

The citywide or parish penance service may have passed or is coming up but it is never too late to go to confession. It is the Third Sunday of Advent—Gaudete Sunday—the Sunday of rejoicing. Small signs of life in spring flowers appear in the church, and uplifting rose-colored vestments, ribbons, and banners are displayed. The pink candle of the Advent wreath is lit. Have you noticed weekly that the Advent candles are lit from the Paschal candle, conferring the hope and promise that begins at Advent and will be fulfilled at Easter?

Have we emerged from the wilderness of our hearts and made “straight” the way of the Lord as St. John the Baptist exhorted? Are we ready for that divine moment in time when Christ came into the world for the first time on Christmas, and when he will come again? New life is possible. The sacrament of reconciliation is one way to reclaim that new life.

Statistics from the Center for Applied Research on the Apostolate at Georgetown University tell us that 42 percent of Roman Catholic Americans never go to confession, 14 percent go once a year, and only 2 percent go regularly. Respondents claim reconciliation is not effective or a meaningful practice for them, or that they rather pray directly to God. Many say they have lost confidence in confession due to the clergy scandal, but is that really a reason to shun a sacrament because some have fallen? Do we not need to practice reconciliation as part of our Catholic recommitment and on-going conversion to holiness? Is anything unforgivable? Even the thief on the cross in the last minutes of his life was promised paradise that day with Jesus.

Reconcilia...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Chapter 1: Advent and the Christmas Season
• Chapter 2: Special Supplement for Advent and Christmas I
• Chapter 3: Special Supplement for Advent and Christmas II
• Chapter 4: The Christmas Season and Pre-Lent Ordinary Time
• Chapter 5: Lent and Easter
• Chapter 6: Special Supplement for Lent and Easter I
• Chapter 7: Special Supplement for Lent and Easter II
• Chapter 8: The Fifty Days of Easter, Special Feast Days and Saints
• Chapter 9: Ordinary Time Resumes
• Glossary