A calendar that circles, but really only goes one way

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

Another year has come and gone.

Yes, January 1 is still over five weeks away, but a new church year starts this Sunday, the First Sunday of Advent.

Advent, as a liturgical season, has been celebrated for centuries, although it is not as ancient as the observation of Lent. Both Lent and Advent are seasons of preparation. Lent prepares for the Triduum, the commemoration of the Lord's Paschal Mystery. Advent focuses on preparing for Christ's coming.

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In many ways, the liturgical calendar is one of preparation, anchored by the great feasts of our salvation: Easter and Christmas. This calendar has several seasons:

Advent, which is the time we prepare to celebrate Christ's coming at Bethlehem, his coming to us now - through the sacraments and within the community of the church - and his final coming at the end of time;

Christmas and Epiphany, when we celebrate the great manifestations of God's presence in Jesus Christ, who was and is "God With Us";

A brief span of Ordinary Time, during which our Gospel readings focus on Jesus' ministry among us, intended to help us recognize how that ministry continues to the present day;

Lent, the season of repentance and conversion, of metanoia or a change of heart that turns us back to God. During this time, we seek a "new heart" as we prepare to fully celebrate Holy Week and Easter, and the mysteries of our redemption;

Easter and the 50 days of Eastertide when we celebrate new life. Easter is the most important feast of the church year and has been our central event since the first day of the resurrection. During Easter, we celebrate our faith that "What God has done for Jesus, he will do for us." We have received new life in Christ through birth in the Spirit and we must live as Alleluia people.

Pentecost celebrates the birthday of the church, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ's followers;

A longer period of Ordinary Time follows - when we are called to live the mission of Christ's church: to go and make disciples of all nations. Again, the Gospels focus upon the ministry of Jesus as the Teacher who shows us how to live in the Spirit and in the light of the resurrection.

This cycle of seasons did not develop all at once. In fact, it wasn't until the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century that what we now call the temporal cycle of the calendar was formalized. (There is also a sanctoral cycle, which celebrates the feasts of the saints.)

The first "season" to develop was Easter. This central feast was the focus of the first liturgy of the church - celebrated each Sunday, the "first day of the week." It was marked by gatherings of Christians which eventually developed into what we now know as Sunday Mass. Since every time Christians gathered on Sunday, they celebrated the Lord's resurrection, it took some time for a special annual feast of Easter - the Pascha - to develop. But that had clearly happened by the second century, when the church had spread well outside Jerusalem. (The Pascha, tied to a lunar cycle, took place around the time of the Jewish Passover.)

This annual Easter celebration became the ideal time to welcome new members into the church - to new life through baptism - so a time of preparation for that baptism developed in the next few centuries. Since many Christians, in solidarity with their catechumens, wanted to prepare for this highlight of the year, this time of preparation soon became something all Christians did - and the season we now call Lent developed.

The birth of Jesus was not kept as a feast of Christians for several centuries. (When it did develop, it formed around the Roman winter feast of Sol Invictus - the invincible sun.) Rather, the first major feast commemorating Jesus' early life was Epiphany - which means "manifestation." This is still the major feast of Christ's early life - compared to the Nativity - among Eastern Orthodox churches. And Epiphany - which originally (and still does in the East) celebrated the visit of the Magi, the Lord's baptism, and the wedding at Cana - eventually led to what we now call Advent.

In the churches of Gaul (now France) and Spain, a preparation season for Epiphany - also a popular time for baptisms - developed by the fourth century. This season began on Dec. 17, three weeks before Epiphany. (Interestingly, the Roman Saturnalia, a feast marking Roman's golden age, also fell on Dec. 17 and lasted a week. Christmas eventually eclipsed the old Roman feasts.)

The Gallican and Spanish churches had a great influence on the liturgical life of the church of the West - especially after the fall of the Roman Empire in 475 A.D. It was Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) who formally established Advent - four weeks of preparation leading to the birth of Jesus.

Advent begins the Church year. However, we must remember that this Church year does not simply mark a list of holidays and feasts. It is different from an ordinary calendar. The church year reminds us that we live in God's time. As the Benedictines wrote in Days of the Lord, the Liturgical Year, "If one wished to characterize the spirituality of the liturgical year, one would have to speak of wakefulness and vigilance. We have been admonished to practice these virtues from the time of the announcement of the first manifestation of the Lord until his anticipated return as King of the Universe."

So, even though the liturgical year runs through a cycle, it is really a one-way street, preparing us - and leading us - into eternity.