Anticipation for the Lord's Birth

Advent, from the Latin “ad-venire” meaning “to come to,” is a time of preparation and anticipation for the remembrance of our Lord’s birth and His eventual Second Coming. Additionally, the Church calls us to conversion and a repentance of the heart during Advent to prepare our souls to receive our newborn King and the heavenly Kingdom to come. In essence, this season allows us to look back on the hope for the Savior of the World, experience anew the joy of his arrival and also his reign in the present through his Church, and to prepare ourselves for his glorious return at his Second Coming.

As we approach Christmas, we know what is coming, the joy that is to enter the world on December 25th, and we can start to experience glimpses of that joy during the season of Advent, but we know that it is not yet at its fullness. To visually symbolize this anticipation of what is to come, a glimpse of the majesty and glory to come at Christmas, we will be doing something different with our decorating this year. Starting with the First Sunday of Advent, the Christmas trees and lanterns will be put up in the church but not decorated or lit. They serve as a reminder of “almost, but not yet” that we experience spiritually during Advent until we get to Christmas itself, where these bare decorations we spent the past few weeks with are finally decorated and lit to become a shimmering reminder that the Light of the World has come. The messiah that was longed for to “disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death's dark shadows put to flight” has finally arrived!

Additionally, during Advent, there will be another change happening in the Sanctuary. We are called during Advent to refocus our lives and souls on our Lord’s incarnation. One way to emphasize that is to more thoroughly recognize Him in the flesh, where he dwells with us in the tabernacle and at the altar. There is an Advent hymn named People Look East; its opening verse is this: “People, look east. The time is near. Of the crowning of the year. Make your house fair as you are able, Trim the hearth and set the table. People, look east and sing today: Love, the guest, is on the way.”

Our church faces east; it orients us to look east where the Tabernacle is located: where our Lord is physically present. To emphasize this and better serve our Lord at the altar, the seating in the Sanctuary will be rearranged to have the altar servers seated in the sanctuary with the clergy. Also, just as we, the people, look east and refocus ourselves on Christ’s incarnation on the altar, our clergy are also going to do so as well, leading us on that journey of faith and placing the Eucharist at the center of attention during the mass. Their chairs will be reoriented at an angle so that from where they are seated, they can now see our Lord’s dwelling place, and their focus is moved away from them and toward the altar.

Through these changes, I hope Advent becomes, for all of us, clergy and laity alike, young and not so young, a time to await with joyful hope the glory to come in Christ’s heavenly kingdom and a recommitment to placing Him at the center of our lives, working always in the service of Him, who is love and truth itself.