Martyn’s Mutterings – Teaching & Comments by Fr Martyn

The Reason for the Church’s Liturgical Year of Seasons

The Season of Advent resets the clocks and calendars of Christian liturgy and worship. It marks the beginning of a new liturgical year and it changes all the readings to a sequence known as “Year B”, with the primary reading from Mark’s Gospel. Advent summons us to the basics of origins and beginnings of our faith, while at the same time it embraces conclusion, finality and completion. We see this in the Gospel readings for Advent Sunday: Jesus said to his disciples, "Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come... May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.!" That is certainly about finality - but we use it to prepare for Christmas, which is about the beginning of our Christian faith. So, Advent juxtaposes these two themes of beginning and ending. How are we to understand the reason for this? The Book of Revelation uses the term “beginning and ending”, “first and last” as titles given to Jesus, “I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty (Revelation 1:8). Alpha and Omega are the beginning and ending letters of the Greek alphabet. Now we also use them on the Easter Paschal Candle – have a look at the candle next to the font when you leave the church today and you will notice A (Alpha) at the top and Ω (Omega) at the bottom of the symbol. When we celebrate Easter, we use them in the blessing of the candle “Christ yesterday and today, the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega. All time belongs to him and all ages, to him be glory and power through every age. Amen”.

So, where is this all leading?

Advent is not about two contrary themes juxtaposed against each other – they are about a Person, Christ our Lord who embraces the totality of existence. So the liturgical year is always focused on Jesus the Lord and through the yearly cycle of seasons and feast days the Church unfolds the entire mystery of Christ. This is rather like looking at a diamond with its variety of different facets. The Advent themes tell us of the Lord who will come at the end of time (or the end of our life) as Master, Lord and Judge and we reflect on this as we prepare to celebrate Christmas when he came to join us as Brother, Friend and Companion. Christmas tells us what kind of Judge he is. Advent is about a joyful hope about end of things.