Advent and Antiphons, Through the Years

Last updated on: March 17, 2017 at 9:40 pm by Elizabeth Scalia

Advent and Antiphons, Through the Years 2017-03-17T21:40:16+00:00 Elizabeth Scalia

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

On this day, one year ago, this is where I was at — still thinking of Advent and what it means, but under very different circumstances.

It is amazing how fast time goes by, how our days pass almost in a blur unless we stop to take stock. And it’s also amazing how much my mutton-chopped, exceedingly loud 16 year old has taught me. And how much my brother is teaching me, still.

Some of my Evangelical friends have wondered to me, via email, what the purpose is, of the Liturgical Year — why we Catholics put so much stock in “ritualistic” sorts of things, like Advent, and its trappings — the purple vestments, the Advent wreaths and such. “Jesus came once for all, he doesn’t keep coming,” one lady wrote to me – “Christmas is a wonderful remembrance, but why do you need a whole Advent season?”

I can only answer by saying, “look at what I wrote last year, and what I have written this year; Christ is constant, but our lives are not.”

We can get so caught up in things, in working, paying bills, making deadlines, tending to our families. I’ll stipulate that perhaps I am a particularly needy sort of person, but I have a strong feeling that — knowing myself pretty well — if I had not the Advent season, and all the church’s wonderful tools for teaching, prayer and worship during this time, I might not have been able to stop, at some point in each day, to consider what Christmas really means, to think long and hard, or slumbery/prayerful about what exactly has transpired, here. Because it is monumental, this Coming — it is the Coming of Love in a way never before (or since) encountered.

And yes, it “happened.” But if God is outside of Time, and we know He is, then it “is happening” right now. And when I pray, each day, “come, Lord Jesus” I pray for that Coming of Love, I pray for that moment when heaven reached down in song and succor and cradled earth, albeit in the guise of One needing a cradle. When I pray “come, Lord Jesus” it is also “maranatha,” Come again. Come, still. Come, everyday, to needy, weak and helpless me.

Advent is the Coming. The season helps us to make ourselves ready — to make straight the paths in the wilderness of our fickle, changeable, distracted, all-too-human hearts.

I think this year I have been so cued into the Incarnation, perhaps, because it has been a year in which death has played a large part, both my brother’s passing, and then the health problems of older family members. It’s been such a year of clenched teeth and held breaths! Finally, in Advent, I feel like I’ve been able to exhale and look up in wonder rather than in supplication. Like a shepherd tired from the day’s rounding and believing that tomorrow brings nothing new, I look up and — gasp! — The Incarnation; the Creator come down to us. I haven’t been able to stop thinking of it, and marveling at it, all Advent. A pal who goes by an unusual handle of Shiloh emailed this meditation:

Can you imagine the mind shattering glory of Heaven’s angels singing their joy, devotion and love at the birth of the baby Jesus?

Having let Him go from their midst, and disappearing from their close contact while He made himself into that form which could be born human, then as He promised them, He is born of the Holy Mother of God in the lowliest circumstances, and His Blessed Holy angels find Him right where he surely told them He would be.

Can you even imagine their shouts of Joy? Could a human heart withstand the stupendous majesty of their chorus?

Indeed. God kisses the earth, and nothing has been the same since. We should be trembling to know it, trembling — not in fear, but in awe and humility and thanksgiving.

But no, maybe that’s not quite it, maybe God doesn’t just kiss the earth, for a kiss cannot last.

Rather, God comes, as bridegroom — the real bridegroom who weds himself to us, divinity to humanity — and shares with us that most intimate privilege of marriage, the joining of two into one, the mutual dependence, the mutual commitment. What God has brought together, no man may separate. We are One. But every marriage, even the best, needs constant attention, constant giving…constancy. Call the repetitious seasons of Advent, then, year after year, a renewal of our wedding vows, complete with honeymoon…

This is how I ended my post from 2004. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. What is Eternal and outside of time is Still. As it was in the beginning, is now and evermore shall be:

I cannot help – in these final days of Advent – to think about what God did, in a lonely cave on the outskirts of Bethlehem, when He condescended to enter into the pain and fear, the tumult and whirlwind of the world…when he “set his tent among us,” not merely “dwelling” among us as lofty king, but literally “with” us, with hunger, the capacity for injury and doubt…

God entered in, not with a cacophany of noise and a display of raw power, but as the humblest and most dependent of creatures: a baby, lying in a manger, a place for the feeding of animals. He, who became Food for the World, entered with silence, as though he had put his finger to the quivering mouth of a troubled, sobbing world and said…”ssshhhh…it is alright, I’ll keep you company…”

It will be alright.

In the final week of Advent, the week before Christmas, the prayers and readings at Vespers are particularly beautiful, in no small part because of the ancient and traditional “O” Antiphons which precede the recitation of The Canticle of Mary, the Magnificat: My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my being proclaims the greatness of my savior.

For tonight, the O Antiphon reads: O King of all the nations, the only joy of every human heart; O Keystone of the mighty arch of man, come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust…

Oh, Amen. Indeed, amen.

Advent

Previous Post

December 21, 2005

A few nice shots

Next Post

December 22, 2005 Nothing wrong with a lad in a kilt!

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category "Remaking" Ourselves 'Remaking' America 9/10 Mindset 9/11 trials Abortion ACORN Adoration Advent Advent 2008 Advent 2009 Advent 2010 Alternative Energy Alternative Media America American Catholic Church American Church American Genius Ameridolatry ANCHORESS BOOKSHELF Anglican-Roman Reconciliation Answers & Questions Anti_Semitism Archbishop Hilarion Ayn Rand Bad Mass Barack Obama Baseball Benedict Benedict & Islam Benedict in UK Benedict XVI Benedictine Bill Whittle Birth Control Blogs and Blogging Blogs and Blogging Bloodless Coup Bobby Jindal Bookchat Breitbart Bride at every wedding... Bride at every wedding... Buckley Bullies Bush Bad? Bush Good Buster Capitalism Catholic Fiction Catholic Vocations Catholicism Celibacy Chaput Charitable Stuff Chesterton Chile Chris Christie Christians in Exile Christine O' Donnell Christmas Christmas Gift Ideas Church Hates Science? Church hates women Communion of Saints Compline Conclave 2013 Confession Constitutional Stuff Conversion Crisis & Opportunity Critical Thinking Crooks and Liars Crucible of Faith Cuba Culture of Life Culture of Life/Death Culture of Treason? Dancing Death Dialogue re Islam Dick Meyer Divorce and Remarriage DOJ Domestic Terrorism Dominican Order Don't try me too high Dowd Dumb Democrat moves Dumb GOP moves Economic woe Education Egregious Harry Reid Elder Son Elder Son's Sweet Girlfriend Elderly Election '10 Election '12 Election '16 Election 2004 Election 2006 Election 2008 Election 2010 Election 2016 Elena Kagan Elitism Embryonic Stem Cell Research End Times? English language Enhanced Interrogation Erosion of Rights Eucharist Euthanasia Exorcism Extraordinary Synod Facebook Faith Faith and Reason Faith Friday Faith Perspective Faithful Friday Fascism Again Fascism in America Fatima FCC Feminism Film First Things Forgiveness Fr. James Martin Francis and Islam Francis in America Frassati Fred Thompson Free Speech? Freedom of Worship FutureChurch Global Pandemic GOP Congress Haiti Head Covering Health Care Here and Queer Hermits Heroes Hitchens Holy Spirit Holy Week '09 Holy Week '10 Hoo-Hah & BS Hoo-Hah & BS Icons Illegal Immigration In The Arena Interviews Interwebz Iran Uprising Iraqi Christians ISIL ISIS Islamic State Islamification/Islamofascism Islamification/Islamofascism Isra-El It's all about me! Me! ME! James Burke Jerry Lewis Jesus Christ Joblessness John Boehner John McCain John Paul II John XXIII Juan Williams Just Words Katrina/Rita King is a Fink Latin Mass Leadership Lectio Divina Lent Lent '08 Lent '09 Lent 2010 Lent 2011 Limbaugh Listen to Lizzie Litigious Society Liturgy Liturgy of the Hours Mainstream Media Manliness Marriage Mary Media Excess Medical Merton Michelle Obama Mighty John O' Connor Misc. Miss Ella Missionaries Mitt Romney Monasticism My brother S My Irish Aunties Mystic Monks Nanny Statism Nature NEA Neri New Media Newman Noonan Notre Dame NPR Stuff Nun News Obama Bad? Obama Good? Obama White House Oil Spill Online Retreat '08 Online Retreat Days Oratory Orthodoxy Our Hillary! Parenting Passionists Patheos Patheos Book Club Patrons Paul Ryan Penance Penn Jillette Philosophy PJTV Podcasts Poetry Politics-free zone Pop Culture Pope Emeritus Pope Francis Prayer Predictions Priesthood Pro-Life Public Sector Unions Purgatory Questions about Catholicism Quotes of the Day Quoting the News Race in America rants Recipes Remarried Catholics Reposts by request Retreat thoughts Rome Rudy Giuliani Russia Saints Sarah Palin Scandal Scott Brown SCOTUS Scriptural stuff Secularism Send in the clowns Serving up hot links Sexuality Sherrod Shroud of Turin Sisters and Nuns Social Entrepreneurship Social Media Social Security Socialism doesn't work Sports and Faith Stem Cells Strange Gods Suffering Synod Tea Parties Tea Party Terri Schiavo The 9/11 Commission The Catholic Answer The Constitution The Desert The Fourth Estate The Pelosi The Perpetual Adolescents The Rosary Third Party? Timothy Dolan Touch of evil TSA Tsunami TV/Pop Culture/Music TV/Pop Culture/Music Twitter Uncategorized Unemployment Unintended Consequences US Military Vaginal Musings Vatican Vespers video faves Vile Joe Biden Voter Fraud War by Litigation War on Terror War, What it good for? Why can't weeee be ... World Youth Days Year of Faith Year of the Priest

Select a Month August 2016 July 2016 April 2016 March 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

A Samaritan stopped to help a wounded man after a priest and a Levite passed by. Where was the man traveling from and to?

Select your answer to see how you score.

From Jerusalem to Jericho From Bethany to Jerusalem From Samaria to Nazareth From Galilee to Judea