Catechism Corner | Advent is a Time of Preparation

Advent is the time we are given to welcome the Lord who comes to encounter us, and also to verify our longing for God, to look forward and prepare ourselves for Christ's return. He will return to us in the celebration of Christmas, when we will remember his historic coming in the humility of the human condition; but he enters our heart each time we are willing to receive him; and he will come again at the end of time to 'judge the living and the dead'" (Pope Francis, Angelus December 3, 2017).

The season of Advent is the inauguration of the liturgical year, "in which the Church marks the passage of time with the celebration of the main events in Jesus' life and the story of salvation" (Pope Francis, Angelus November 29, 2020). It lasts four weeks, from the first vespers of the Sunday closest to November 30 until the first vespers of December 25. This period includes the four Sundays before Christmas. "During these four weeks we are called to leave behind a resigned and routine way of life and to go forth, nourishing hope, nourishing dreams for a new future" (Pope Francis, Angelus, December 2, 2018).

The season is divided into two parts, each highlighting an important truth of faith. The first ends on December 16 and focuses on the second coming of the Messiah. The second, from December 17 to 24, is directed towards preparing more immediately for Christmas. In this way, the Church helps the faithful to remember and reflect on the One who "assumed at his first coming the lowliness of human flesh, and so fulfilled the design you formed long ago, and opened for us the way to eternal salvation, that, when he comes again in glory and majesty and all is at last made manifest, we who watch for that day may inherit the great promise in which now we dare to hope."

The season of Advent is considered a "high point" in the liturgical year because it helps us prepare to receive the Lord in Christmas. At the same time, it directs us to increase our hope in the second coming of Christ, and reminds us of his continual presence in the Eucharist. "When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Saviour's first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating the precursor's birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to his desire: 'He must increase, but I must decrease.' (Jn 3:30)" It is an invitation to conversion and hope.

The preparation that the Church proposes to us during Advent takes the form of a journey of personal conversion. The liturgy makes this path present to us through the figure of John the Baptist. From the hand of the precursor we begin a journey of detachment from sin and worldliness, "this conversion involves suffering for sins committed, the desire to be free from them, the intention to exclude them from one's own life forever" (Pope Francis, Angelus, December 6, 2020). Only in this way will we be able to direct ourselves to the search for God and his kingdom, to friendship and communion with God, which is the true goal of the conversion of each one of us.

At the same time, it is a moment of confident hope in the Messiah. This hope is based on the fact that "the Lord always comes, He is always by our side. At times he does not make himself seen, but he always comes. He came at a precise moment in history and became man to take on our sins — the feast of the Nativity commemorates Jesus' first coming in the historical moment —; He will come at the end of times as universal judge" (Pope Francis, Angelus November 29, 2020).

During these days, the Church reminds us that God is present in human history and continues to act to lead it to its fullness in Jesus Christ. So we ask him, and the liturgy reminds us, "May these mysteries, O Lord, in which we have participated, profit us, we pray, for even now, as we walk amid passing things, you teach us by them to love the things of heaven and hold fast to what endures."