https://churchpop.com/2016/12/03/is-advent-a-penitential-season-busting-a-common-myth/ Is Advent a Penitential Season? Busting a Common Myth ChurchPOP EditorDecember 3, 2016 elPadawan, Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0 Lent and Advent seem to have a lot in common: they both have violet as their liturgical color and they are both seasons in preparation for celebrations. So, since we all know Lent is a penitential season, is Advent one, too? Though it’s commonly believed that Advent is a penitential season, the answer is actually no, it’s not. The Code of Canon Law is very straight forward about what the penitential periods of the Church are: “The penitential days and times in the universal Church are every Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.” (CCC 1250) So that’s it: Fridays (all year long, by the way) and Lent. Advent is not listed. Instead, according to the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, Advent is “a period for devout and joyful expectation.” So then why is Advent commonly believed to be penitential? Because it’s used to be a penitential season like Lent. According to the old Catholic Encyclopedia, Advent originated as a 40 day fast (like Lent) in preparation for Christmas in around the fifth century. This explains the purpose of Laetare Sunday, which uses rose as its liturgical color: it was meant to be a time of respite in the middle of a long period of fasting. But this was slowly reduced over time: by the 9th century it was reduced to four weeks, and by the 12th century the fasting was replaced by simply abstinence. The penitential character faded over time such that by at least the 20th century it was no longer considered penitential. And officially, according to Canon Law, it isn’t. [See also: The Secret Message Hidden in the Ancient “O Antiphons” of Advent] [See also: 16 Churches So Beautiful They’ll Take Your Breath Away] Love ChurchPOP? Get our inspiring content delivered to your inbox every morning - FREE!
But... http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2016/12/yes-advent-is-penitential-season.html?m=1#.XAa02qROnYU Yes, Advent IS a Penitential Season It seems that the start of every new liturgical year brings forth at least one article in the Catholic parts of the web “explaining” that Advent is not a penitential season. The Code of Canon Law is generally cited, since Advent is not included in the “official” list of penitential days and seasons, along with the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, which describes it as a period of “devout and joyful expectation,” with no mention of penance. The reality of the matter is more complex. The Church’s traditions are not comprehensively determined by or summed up in any Code of Canon Law, nor in any Missal or other liturgical book. It is true that Advent is not a fasting season, and has not been so in the West for a very long time. On the other hand, fasting in Lent, the most ancient and universal sign of that season’s penitential nature, has been reduced to a risible two days, and the many references to “fasting” have either been removed or changed to “abstinence” in the prayers and hymns of the Lenten liturgy. And yet no one would claim that Lent is therefore not a penitential season. Historically, Advent and Lent have a great deal in common liturgically, and that has actually not changed very much in the post-Conciliar rite. The liturgical colors of the season, violet and rose, remain the same. (More on this below.) From very ancient times, the vestments which symbolize the joy of a feast day, the dalmatic and tunicle, were replaced in both seasons by folded chasubles, which were then (inexplicably) abolished tout court, not just for Advent. (In churches which did not have them, the deacon and subdeacon served in albs, the former with a stole.) In the new rite, the dalmatic may be left off “for necessity’s sake, or because of a lesser degree of solemnity.” (GIRM 338) Since no indication is given as to what constitutes “a lesser degree of solemnity,” one is perfectly free to regard the Sundays of Advent as less solemn than the festivities of the Christmas season, and leave the dalmatics off. (The vagueness of this rubric has, unfortunately but inevitably, lead in many places to the abuse of deacons never wearing a dalmatic, but rather the penitential arrangement of alb and stole, even on the greatest solemnities.) In the Mass, the Gloria in excelsis is omitted on Sunday in both Forms of the Roman Rite. On the ferial days of Advent, the Alleluia is traditionally omitted before the Gospel; this is optional in the Novus Ordo, which is to say, a perfectly licit way of continuing to observe the Church’s historical custom. Traditionally, Advent and Lent also both saw the removal of flowers from the altar, and the silencing of the organ. In the post-Conciliar liturgy, this has been slightly modified; flowers and the organ are forbidden in Lent (not merely discouraged), but may be used in Advent “with that moderation which is fitting for the nature of this season.” (GIRM 305 and 313) Again, the rubrics’ vagueness leaves one perfectly free to decide that they are best left off altogether. The exceptions to the traditional rule about flowers and organ music are Gaudete and Laetare Sundays, on which they may be used as they would be on other Sundays and feasts, along with the characteristic rose-colored vestments, which were created as a mitigation of the penitential violet. The continued existence of Gaudete Sunday in the middle of Advent is the clearest sign that the season’s penitential character endures. And If It Isn’t, It Should Be Laying all this aside, when the time comes to Reform the Reform, (as it certainly will, even though we know not the day nor the hour,) it will have to be admitted that “devout and joyful expectation” has been a failure, and should be redressed as such. It does not seem to have achieved anything at all by way of restraining the orgy of consumerism that passes for Christmas in much of the world. The spectacle of “Black Friday” shopping on the day after Thanksgiving is fortunately limited to the United States, (where, however, Catholics are the single largest Christian denomination by an enormous margin.) The restoration of some degree of fasting and penance in Advent, already practiced by many on a private level, would provide a powerful Catholic witness to the “reason for the season.” While videos of Black Friday are often a very sad thing to watch, personally I have always found it even sadder to see how many Christmas trees are out on the sidewalk with the trash by the evening of the 26th. This is one of many common signs that, rather than being kept as a season of expectation, joyful or otherwise, Advent has become in many places a backwards version of the Christmas and Epiphany octaves. Pastorally, the Church should encourage the faithful to bear witness to the importance of the birth of Christ by keeping the whole of the Christmas season, with the very ancient and important feasts that follow, as the great prolonged festival it traditionally was; reestablishing a formally penitential character for Advent would certainly help us to do that, as Lent does for Easter.
I heard a priest say in a homily this morning that Advent (up to December 17th) is not a preparation for the birth of Our Lord. But, rather , a preparation for his next coming, whether at our Death and Judgement or His final coming. I never heard this before! How did I miss this? But actually if you listen to readings and prayers at mass you can see this is so. It opened my eyes a lot. I think a Spiritual Preparation for any big spiritual event in our life requires prayer and penance. So say for a big Marian Feast like the Immaculate Conception. Or say a person getting married of ordained. Or someone to receive a Sacrament like confession of the Eucharist; or seeking healing or preparing for death, or making a big decision....or anything we count important. We must dig a hole in our hearts for Christ to fill.
Dan Lynch December 4, 2018 As we begin our Advent Campaign, let us remember that Saint John Paul II declared a new mission for America. He said, “Now is the time of the New Evangelization to lead the People of God in America to cross the threshold of the third millennium with renewed hope.” Our Apostolates fulfill this mission through Visitations of the Missionary Images of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Jesus King of All Nations and Our Lady of America and our promotion of devotion to St. John Paul II. Advent means “coming” and we prepare over four Sundays to celebrate the first coming of Jesus at Christmas and his continual comings to us through the sacraments and to be ready for his Second Coming at the end of time. Advent is also known as a “little Lent” because we prepare in the same manner by prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Jesus said, “If you give what you have as alms, all will be wiped clean for you.” (Luke 11:41). I invite you to be a beneficiary of the promise of Jesus to be wiped clean by giving alms for our Apostolates.
I love Patrick Kavanagh's poem 'Advent'. For me, it captures a sense of what the penitential aspect of Advent is about. Advent We have tested and tasted too much, lover- Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder. But here in the Advent-darkened room Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea Of penance will charm back the luxury Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom The knowledge we stole but could not use. And the newness that was in every stale thing When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking Of an old fool will awake for us and bring You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins. O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching For the difference that sets an old phrase burning- We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching. And we'll hear it among decent men too Who barrow dung in gardens under trees, Wherever life pours ordinary plenty. Won't we be rich, my love and I, and God we shall not ask for reason's payment, The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges Nor analyse God's breath in common statement. We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour- And Christ comes with a January flower.
