Joy and Preparation in Advent

As the calendar year draws to a close, many face the onerous preparations and obligations that mark the holiday season, and the hustle and bustle and frenzy of the shopping season is palpable—not to mention year-end reports or grading for some. Cards, lists, stores, travel. In the northern hemisphere, and places like Pittsburgh, the sun takes its leave far too early each day, and the bitter winds test the worth of our textiles.

Yet, underlying it all is something else: deeper, calm, hopeful, expectant. Lights adorning houses resist the early darkness and raise our spirits, and a lightness permeates the air—this is surely more connected to themes from Dickens’s A Christmas Carol than to the absence of humidity, the latter to which I must confess an intense aversion. In fact, for believers, the new liturgical year commences with the holy season of Advent, which, paradoxically, intensifies the tensions that mark Christian life.

Perhaps it is odd to focus on tensions when we collectively yearn for the Lord’s arrival, the celebration of the Incarnation and the Feast of the Lord’s nativity that commemorate the fulfillment of an ancient promise to the nation of Israel. The sacred memory of this saving gift indeed calls for joyous feasting and the giving and receiving of gifts. But such tensions are not merely appropriate for the season; in fact, they orient us and prepare us for life with God and each other, presently and eternally. A Christmas sermon preached by St. John Henry Newman in 1834 well expresses this notion and provides sage instruction for framing these tensions. I will offer brief reflections in consideration of Newman’s view.

When Newman preached this sermon, he was still enthralled by a romantic view of the early church that cast acute regret on the inevitable need for the church to counter heresy with doctrinal pronouncements. While he would go on to see doctrines in a more favorable light in years to come, at this time, he was wont to express the following sentiments:

Around the Church, indeed, the voices of blasphemy were heard, even as when He hung on the cross; but in the Church there was light and peace, fear, joy, and holy meditation. Lawless doubtings, importunate inquirings, confident reasonings were not. An heartfelt adoration, a practical devotion to the Ever-blessed Son, precluded difficulties in faith, and sheltered the Church from the necessity of speaking.2

Without getting ensnared by debates about the role of heresy in prompting orthodox confessions, I am intrigued by Newman’s attention to silence and reverence, and how they prepare the way for our devotion, including speech, as we contemplate the advent of the Lord, in the past and in the future.

Newman's sermon begins with John 1:14: “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” The brevity and simplicity of these potent words imply the need for great reverence, even silence, which “is best on so sacred a subject.”3 He meditates on the unparalleled nature of this gift, 

in which man may be said to be united with God…. We believe, and have joy in believing, that the grace of Christ renews our carnal souls, repairing the effects of Adam’s fall…and, as being under immediate heavenly influences…we are assured of some real though mystical fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.4

While the Incarnation is an “infinitely higher and mysterious union”5 than our own mystical union with God, we have nevertheless “come to share in the divine nature” (2 Pet 1:4), and this enjoins our own response and duty as Christians. We must be reverent before this “awe-ful” mystery of God’s “surpassing loving-kindness in taking upon Him our infirmities to redeem us.”6 And we must not forget that the Lord has drawn near to us so that we might draw near to God and one another.

It is only with this framing that Newman conceives of our words becoming “an outlet of devotion, a service of worship.”7 The Christian who has knelt in silence and reverence before the Lord, who has contemplated the gift of sharing life with God, is the one able to make a properly discursive offering to the Lord.

Surely He will mercifully accept it, if faith offers what the intellect provides; if love kindles the sacrifice, zeal fans it, and reverence guards. He will illuminate our earthly words from His own Divine Holiness, till they become saving truths to the souls which trust in Him.8

As we reflect on the gift, we attenuate the volume of our ceaseless inner chatter and increase our own love and devotion to the Lord. We are thus prepared to speak, faithfully and profitably, when called to do so.

The magnitude of God’s gift and love precipitates a tension not merely between silence and speech, but in our very hope for the Lord. We of course look back on the gift of the Incarnation thousands of years ago, and we signal this gift in numerous ways: Advent calendars, Christmas trees, and nativity scenes. These actions of salvific memory precede gratitude which facilitates the loving-kindness of the Lord—to which Newman alluded. The reason for the season indeed.

Yet, Advent also features our longing for the Second Coming, when we shall be judged by the One who took on flesh. “So honoured is this earth, that no stranger shall judge us, but He who is our fellow, who will sustain our interests, and has full sympathy with our imperfections.”9 The Christian is thus reminded not only of the Incarnation, but also of Christ’s earthly ministry and Paschal Mystery, as well as Pentecost and the gift of the Spirit received in Baptism. God has indeed drawn near to us, and at great cost, “so that both by a real presence in the soul, and by the fruits of grace, God is one with every believer, as in a consecrated Temple.”10 And these temples—our very lives—belong to the Lord, who “will separate the wheat from the chaff.”11 Perhaps these are sobering thoughts, but with Newman’s assistance, we can come to a deeper appreciation of the liturgical year, and how Advent is a time of joyful preparation, for what God has done, is doing, and will do in the ages to come.

A version of this article will also appear on projectneighbor.org.

2 John Henry Newman, PS ii.3, 27. The sermon was entitled, “The Incarnation” (December 25, 1834).

3 John Henry Newman, PS ii.3, 37.

4 John Henry Newman, PS ii.3, 34-35.

5 John Henry Newman, PS ii.3, 36.

6 John Henry Newman, PS ii.3, 38.

7 John Henry Newman, PS ii.3, 37-38.

8 John Henry Newman, PS ii.3, 38.

9 John Henry Newman, PS ii.3, 39-40.

10 John Henry Newman, PS ii.3, 35.

11 John Henry Newman, PS ii.3, 40.