A Carthusian View of Advent: Back to the Future

In our liturgical books, the liturgical year begins with Advent: but Advent itself begins with a week which evokes the glorious return of the Lord, the culmination of the whole history of salvaton.  We begin therefore with the end! ...we must know where we are going in order to know how to set about getting there.  And it is clear that the whole history of the universe is moving towards the second coming of the Lord, where the final judgement of all people will come to pass, where our present world will come to an end, and the new earth and the new heavens to replace it will unfold; in short, the full actualisation of the Kingdom of God, where God will be all in all.  (A Carthusian, From Advent to Pentecost: Carthusian Novice Conferences, trans. Carmel Brett, London: Darton, Longman and Todd (1999), p. 13.)

Advent and the Peace Established by God

The liturgy of the First Sunday of Advent makes us unsettled.  Something about God's coming is terrifying.  Next week and the week after, the great prophet of God's coming - John the Baptist -will only intensify this feeling, urgently calling us to repentance, to make straight the pathway of the Lord.  But this Sunday, it is not his prophet, but the Lord himself who unsettles us, comparing his coming to the waters of destruction at the time of Noah.  He commands us to be prepared - implying that we are not, and this is unsettling.  See Mt. 24:37-44.

Make no mistake.  To feel unsettled is a great grace.  We are already becoming free of dehumanizing ignorance when we catch the hint that our lives are not as they ought to be.  Because of this grace, now is a time of preparation.

This mystery of God's coming into the world evokes a life of conversion, repentance, true piety, forgiveness, and loving sacrifice - not only for the total stranger, but also for those entrusted to us in our own households, even the ones we want to avoid. If you want justice, explains Cardinal van Thuan in his paradoxical fashion, you must work for peace. What can we do to prepare of the Lord's coming, to prepare for the peace He alone provides?  Such hard work!  And the Church asks us to embrace this cheerfully.

Advent begins with the call to wake from sleep, to live in the daylight, to put on the Armour of God, to put on Jesus Christ.  These calls are urgent.  We must not stay asleep in a world of buying and selling, of being entertained, of selfish consumption - we are created for better things.  The calls of the Word of God wake us to this reality, move us to seek the Lord in places other than our own comfort.  They contain the specific gravity of God's grace.  He comes to purify and reorder and re-establish.  He makes all things new.  Never repeating himself, a unique opportunity is before us, one that will never be extended quite this way again.   He comes to establish peace, to separate and order things to his rest like in the first days of creation.  What is his rest?  What is his peace?  He, himself, is the peace He gives and leaves with us.

Since such a great prize is offered us, we must not remain indifferent to the coming of the living God into our lives.  This season helps us see that each coming of the Lord into our hearts is another renewal and deepening of Christmas and at the same time an anticipation of our final judgment. If there is joyful expectancy in all the prayers between now and Christmas, there is also the holy fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom.

Advent 2010, First Sunday: The Power of God's Coming

 

Advent is a powerful liturgical season ordered to the mystery of Christ's coming.  He comes as the Prince of Peace to establish the ways of God as the standard of all that is genuinely human - and He does this personally for each one of us.  This is what Isaiah 2:1-5 indicates - the mountain of the Lord is not merely raised up physically, but spiritually, above all other human affairs and powers.  What is his mountain but the place where we meet Him?  It is a place of theophany.  It is at once the Temple Mount, and the mountain of our own hearts.  The place of encountering the living God is meant to be the center of human activity, the apex of each life.  Christ comes into our lives to bring us to this place of deep contemplation where the creative power of God's word is manifest and peace is established.  

In this season, He is always coming  in mysterious ways, and those who are humble, hidden in the life of faith are made ready for a great joy.  He never stops coming in invisible spiritual ways while we await his final coming in Glory.  Each of these new comings of the Lord anticipates that definitive moment of judgment at the end of history, but also prepares of for the moment of our own death -the personal judgment we recieve when we come before his Face.  If we are not to be overcome by fear, we must spiritually join with, identify with, the lowly remnant who faithfully awaited his historical coming - which they could not know would be in poverty and humility.  These are the ones who walked in the light of the Lord, who longed for peace, who lived in the world spiritually awake.  When He came in the surprising way He chose, they could not have anticipated his marvelous ways - and they could not help but rejoice.

Advent and Pope Benedict

"This powerful liturgical season invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence... the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us signs of the attention he has for each one of us. How often does God give us a glimpse of love!" Pope Benedict XVI.

The loving Presence of the Lord, a Presence that is always coming to us in new ways.  It is time to make room for Him in our schedules and in our hearts.   When we do, we are never disappointed.  The glimpses the Pope refers to make all the difference in life.  Thanks to a special publication by the USCCB, we can journey through Advent with the Holy Father.  For daily reflections throughout this season and next, check out  Advent and Christmas with Pope Benedict XVI.

Theological Contemplation

Spiritual theology or mystical theology is the knowledge we gain by living faith in the Lord God.  St. John of the Cross describes it as general and obscure - but also as beautiful and as enchanting as exotic unexplored islands of some new world waiting to be discovered.   English mystics call it a cloud of unknowning.  St. Gregory of Nyssa describes it as the cloud and darkness that covered Mt. Sinai at the great theophany of Moses. For St. Augustine this is an encounter with the Light from which all light comes, that Light that made us - not a knowledge of what but of Who.  St. Thomas explains that this knowledge is the most certain even if it is not the clearest kind of knowing.  St. Teresa describes it as a gaze into the eyes of the One who was wounded for oursakes.  For her, this knowledge is the principal cause of compunction, the water which alone quenches the gardens of our hearts.  For Catherine of Siena this knowledge is gained by plunging deep into the wounds of Christ and venerating him with kisses from his feet to his lips - the bridge from our misery to the Father's mercy.  All these saints are agreed that such knowledge is a sheer gift which we can only fully recieve by spending time in prayer and a life disciplined by taken up our own crosses.  Though it costs dearly, the whole theological enterprise limps along without it -- such contemplation is the life blood of any meaningful study of God and of anything in relation to Him.  Even after 2000 years of great saints, theologians and mystics, theological contemplation remains a vast barely known frontier of human existence -- for most of the inexhaustible riches of Christ are still waiting to be discovered.