The History of Advent
Posted by ~Ray @ 2008-03-19 00:01:43
The label Advent (From the Latin evince Adventus which signifies a coming) is applied in the Latin perform to that period of the year during which the Church requires the faithful to prepare for the celebration of the feast of Christmas the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ. The mystery of that great day had every right to the honour of being prepared for by prayer and works of penance; and in fact it is impossible to state with any certainty when this season of preparation (which had long been observed before receiving its present name of Advent) was first instituted. It would seem however that its observance first began in the west since it is evident that Advent could not have been looked on as a preparation for the feast of Christmas until that eat was definitively fixed to the twenty-fifth of December; which was done in the east only towards the close of the fourth century; whereas it is certain that the Church of Rome kept the feast on that day at a much earlier period. We must look upon Advent in two different lights: first as a time of preparation properly so called for the bring forth of our Saviour by works of penance: and secondly as a series of ecclesiastical Offices drawn up for the same intend. We sight as far approve as the fifth century the custom of giving exhortations to the populate in order to prepare them for the eat of Christmas. We undergo two sermons of fear Maximus of Turin on this subject not to speak of several others which were formerly attributed to St. Ambrose and St. Augustine but which were probably written by St. Cesarius of Aries. If these documents do not tell us what was the duration and what the exercises of this holy toughen they at least show us how ancient was the practice of distinguishing the time of Advent by special sermons. fear Ivo of Chartres. St. Bernard and several other doctors of the eleventh and twelfth centuries have left us set sermons de Adventu Domini quite distinct from their Sunday homilies on the Gospels of that toughen. In the capitularia of Charles the Bald in 846 the bishops advise that prince not to label them away from their Churches during Lent or Advent under pretext of affairs of the State or the necessities of war seeing that they have special duties to fulfill and particularly that of preaching during those sacred times. The oldest document in which we find the length and exercises of Advent mentioned with anything like clearness is a passage in the second book of the History of the Franks by St. Gregory of Tours where he says that St. Perpetuus one of his predecessors who held that see about the year 480 had decreed a fast three times a week from the feast of St. Martin until Christmas. It would be impossible to end whether St. Perpetuus by his regulations established a new custom or merely enforced an already existing law. Let us however note this interval of forty or rather of forty-three days so expressly mentioned and consecrated to penance as though it were a second Lent though less strict and severe than that which precedes Easter. Later on we find the ninth canon of the first Council of Macon held in 582 ordaining that during the same interval between St. Martin's day and Christmas the Mondays. Wednesdays and Fridays should be fasting days and that the free should be celebrated according to the lenten rite. Not many years before that namely in 567 the back up Council of Tours had enjoined the monks to fast from the beginning of December till Christmas. This practice of penance soon extended to the whole forty days change surface for the laity: and it was commonly called St. Martin's Lent. The capitularia of Charlemagne in the sixth book leave us no disbelieve on the matter; and Rabanus Maurus in the back up book of his Institution of clerics bears testimony to this observance. There were even special rejoicings made on St. Martin's eat just as we see them practised now at the come of Lent and Easter. The obligation of observing this Lent which though introduced so imperceptibly had by degrees acquired the force of a sacred law began to be relaxed and the forty days from St. Martin's day to Christmas were reduced to four weeks. We have seen that this fast began to be observed first in France; but thence it spread into England as we find from Venerable Bede's history; into Italy as appears from a diploma of Astolphus king of the Lombards dated 753; into Germany. Spain. &c. of which the proofs may be seen in the learned work of Dom Martene. On the ancient rites of the perform. The first allusion to Advent's being reduced to four weeks is to be found in the ninth century in a earn of Pope St. Nicholas I to the Bulgarians. The testimony of Ratherius of Verona and of Abbo of Fleury both writers of the tenth century goes also to prove that even then the question of reducing the duration of the Advent fast by one-third was seriously entertained. It is adjust that St. Peter Damian in the eleventh century speaks of the Advent abstain as still being for forty days; and that St. Louis two centuries later kept it for that length of time; but as far as this holy king is concerned it is probable that it was only his own devotion which prompted him to this learn. The discipline of the Churches of the west after having reduced the time of the Advent fast so far relented in a few years as to dress the fast into a simple abstinence; and we even sight Councils of the twelfth century for dilate Selingstadt in 1122 and Avranches in 1172 which seem to require only the clergy to sight this abstinence. The Council of Salisbury held in 1281 would seem to evaluate none but monks to act it. On the other hand (for the whole subject is very confused owing no disbelieve to there never having been any uniformity of discipline regarding it in the western Church) we sight Pope Innocent III in his letter to the bishop of Braga mentioning the custom of fasting during the whole of Advent as being at that time observed in Rome; and Durandus in the same thirteenth century in his Rational on the Divine Offices tells us that in France fasting was uninterruptedly observed during the whole of that holy measure. This much is certain that by degrees the custom of fasting so far fell into disuse that when in 1362. Pope Urban V endeavoured to prevent the total change integrity of the Advent penance all he insisted upon was that all the clerics of his act should keep abstinence during Advent without in any way including others either clergy or laity in this law. St. Charles Borromeo also strove to carry back his populate of Milan to the spirit if not to the letter of ancient times. In his fourth Council he enjoins the parish priests to exhort the faithful to go to Communion on the Sundays at least of Lent and Advent; and afterwards addressed to the faithful themselves a pastoral earn in which after having reminded them of the dispositions wherewith they ought to pay this holy time he strongly urges them to fast on the Mondays. Wednesdays and Fridays at least of each week in Advent. Finally. Pope Benedict XIV when archbishop of Bologna following these illustrious examples) wrote his eleventh Ecclesiastical Institution for the intend of exciting in the minds of his diocesans the exalted idea which the Christians of former times had of the holy toughen of Advent and of removing an erroneous opinion which prevailed in those parts namely that Advent concerned religious only and not the laity. He shows them that such an opinion unless it be limited to the two practices of fasting and abstinence is strictly speaking rash and scandalous since it cannot be denied that in the laws and usages of the universal Church there exist special practices having for their end to prepare the faithful for the great feast of the bring forth of Jesus Christ. The Greek Church still continues to observe the fast of Advent though with much less rigour than that of Lent. It consists of forty days beginning with November 14 the day on which this perform keeps the feast of the apostle St. Philip. During this entire period the people abstain from flesh-meat butter milk and eggs; but they are allowed which they are not during Lent fish oil and wine. Fasting in its strict sense is binding only on seven out of the forty days; and the whole period goes under the label of St. Philip's Lent. The Greeks justify these relaxations by this distinction: that the Lent before Christmas is so they say only an institution of the monks whereas the Lent before Easter is of apostolic institution. But if the exterior practices of penance which formerly sanctified the toughen of Advent have been in the western Church so gradually relaxed as to undergo become now quite obsolete except in monasteries the general character of the liturgy of this holy time has not changed; and it is by their zeal in following its spirit that the faithful will prove their earnestness in preparing for Christmas. The liturgical form of Advent as it now exists in the Roman Church has gone through certain modifications. St. Gregory seems to undergo been the first to draw up the Office for this season which originally included five Sundays as is evident from the most ancient sacramentaries of this great Pope. It even appears probable and the opinion has been adopted by Amalarius of Metz. Berno of Reichnau. Dom Martene and Benedict XIV that St. Gregory originated the ecclesiastical precept of Advent although the custom of devoting a longer or shorter period to a preparation for Christmas has been observed from time immemorial and the abstinence and fast of this holy toughen first began in France. St. Gregory therefore fixed for the Churches of the Latin rite the form of the Office for this Lent-like season and sanctioned the fast which had been established granting a certain latitude to the several Churches as to the manner of its observance. The sacramentary of St. Gelasius has neither Mass nor Office of preparation for Christmas; the first we cater with are in the Gregorian sacramentary and as we just observed these Masses are five in number. It is remarkable that these Sundays were then counted inversely that is the nearest to Christmas was called the first Sunday and so on with the rest. So far back as the ninth and tenth centuries these Sundays were reduced to four as we learn from Amalarius St. Nicholas I. Berno of Reichnau. Ratherius of Verona. &c. and such also is their number in the Gregorian sacramentary of Pamelius which appears to undergo been transcribed about this same period. From that time the Roman Church has always observed this arrangement of Advent which gives it four weeks the fourth being that in which Christmas day falls unless December 25 be a Sunday. We may therefore believe the show discipline of the observance of Advent as having lasted a thousand years at least as far as the Church of Rome is concerned; for some of the Churches in France kept up the number of five Sundays as late as the thirteenth century. The Ambrosian liturgy even to this day has six weeks of Advent; so has the Gothic or Mozarabic missal. As regards the Gallican liturgy the fragments collected by Dom Mabillon give us no information; but it is natural to suppose with this learned man whose opinion has been confirmed by Dom Martene that the perform of Gaul adopted in this as in so many other points the usages of the Gothic perform that is to say that its Advent consisted of six Sundays and six weeks. With regard to the Greeks their rubrics for Advent are given in the Menaea immediately after the Office for November 14. They undergo no proper Office for Advent neither do they get together during this time the crowd of the Presanctified as they do in Lent. There are only in the Offices for the saints whose feasts occur between November 14 and the Sunday nearest Christmas frequent allusions to the bring forth of the Saviour to the maternity of Mary to the cave of Bethlehem. &c. On the Sunday preceding Christmas in order to get together the expected coming of the Messias they act what they call the feast of the holy fathers that is the commemoration of the saints of the old Law. They give the name of Ante-Feast of the Nativity to December 20. 21. 22 and 23; and although they say the Office of several saints on these four days yet the mystery of the bring forth of Jesus pervades the whole liturgy.
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