Christians began keeping the season of Advent from the sixth century, first for six weeks, then for four. However, it took a long time for the season to be given a secure place in the life of the church. In fact it wasn’t until three hundred years later that liturgical books contained the liturgies for Advent.
Not only has the length of the season changed but also the focus of these weeks of the year. In Rome it was seen as a period of preparation for the first coming of Christ, though this did not exclude the eschatological theme of the second coming (the eschaton) of Christ.
In the Middle Ages however this second coming was associated with the Last Judgement. This would be a time of terror for the whole human race. One has only to visit the little church of St Peter & St Paul, Chaldon, in the south of the diocese, to begin to understand how our mediaeval brothers and sisters pictured this. There you can see starkly depicted the punishment that followed judgement. The whole understanding of what this would mean for human beings was summed up in the thirteenth century hymn ‘Dies irae’, ‘day of wrath and doom impending’ written for use during Advent and now part of the traditional texts for the Requiem Mass.
This mixed background of understanding leads to a rich season in which we look to the coming of the Christ as the child of Bethlehem, in which we are caught up with the world in preparation for Christmas, and the coming of Christ as Lord and Judge.
The Advent Candles, which are lit at the beginning of the Parish Communion service and which continue to burn throughout Christmas, represent the four advent figures, the Advent people with whom we share this season. The candles remind us of the patriarchs, the prophets, St John the Baptist and the Virgin Mary. In different ways each of these groups of people or individuals pointed towards the coming of God and the coming of his Messiah. The patriarchs lived according to promise and covenant; the prophets spoke in good times and bad of the one who would fulfil the law and establish the people; John pointed to Jesus and prepared the people for the immance of the kingdom; and Mary, in her own person, made ready for the incarnation, the birth of the one to whom the fathers of the nation looked, of whom the prophets spoken and for whom John was forerunner.
We too are Advent People. We look in hope to the fulfilment of the promise and with the patriarchs we travel in faith. We have a prophetic message which speaks of the establishment of the kingdom of justice and peace, of inclusiveness and love, here and now. We have a duty to call people from where they are to become one with Christ through the way they live their lives and to share in his life through the sacramental life of the church. We are one with Mary in being ‘God-bearers’ to the world, carrying Christ in our hearts into every situation we go, being people of the word, his broken bread to feed the world.