Advent History

But, if the exterior practices of penance which formerly sanctified the

season of Advent, have been, in the western Church, so gradually relaxed

as to have become now quite obsolete except in monasteries, the general

character of the liturgy of this holy time has not changed; and it is by

their zeal in following its spirit, that the faithful will prove their

earnestness in preparing for Christmas.

The liturgical form of Advent as it now exists in the Roman Church, has

gone through certain modifications. St. Gregory seems to have been the

first to draw up the Office for this season, which originally included

five Sundays, as is evident from the most ancient sacramentaries of this

great Pope. It even appears probable, and the opinion has been adopted by

Amalarius of Metz, Berno of Reichnau, Dom Martene, and Benedict XIV, that

St. Gregory originated the ecclesiastical precept of Advent, although the

custom of devoting a longer or shorter period to a preparation for

Christmas has been observed from time immemorial, and the abstinence and

fast of this holy season first began in France. St. Gregory therefore

fixed, for the Churches of the Latin rite, the form of the Office for this

Lent-like season, and sanctioned the fast which had been established,

granting a certain latitude to the several Churches as to the manner of

its observance.

The sacramentary of St. Gelasius has neither Mass nor Office of

preparation for Christmas; the first we meet with are in the Gregorian

sacramentary, and, as we just observed, these Masses are five in number.

It is remarkable that these Sundays were then counted inversely, that is,

the nearest to Christmas was called the first Sunday, and so on with the

rest. So far back as the ninth and tenth centuries, these Sundays were

reduced to four, as we learn from Amalarius St. Nicholas I, Berno of

Reichnau, Ratherius of Verona, &c., and such also is their number in the

Gregorian sacramentary of Pamelius, which appears to have been transcribed

about this same period. From that time, the Roman Church has always

observed this arrangement of Advent, which gives it four weeks, the fourth

being that in which Christmas day falls, unless December 25 be a Sunday.

We may therefore consider the present discipline of the observance of

Advent as having lasted a thousand years, at least as far as the Church of

Rome is concerned; for some of the Churches in France kept up the number

of five Sundays as late as the thirteenth century.

The Ambrosian liturgy, even to this day, has six weeks of Advent; so has

the Gothic or Mozarabic missal. As regards the Gallican liturgy, the

fragments collected by Dom Mabillon give us no information; but it is

natural to suppose with this learned man, whose opinion has been confirmed

by Dom Martene, that the Church of Gaul adopted, in this as in so many

other points, the usages of the Gothic Church, that is to say, that its

Advent consisted of six Sundays and six weeks.

With regard to the Greeks, their rubrics for Advent are given in the

Menaea, immediately after the Office for November 14. They have no proper

Office for Advent, neither do they celebrate during this time the Mass of

the Presanctified, as they do in Lent. There are only in the Offices for

the saints, whose feasts occur between November 14 and the Sunday nearest

Christmas, frequent allusions to the birth of the Saviour, to the

maternity of Mary, to the cave of Bethlehem, &c. On the Sunday preceding

Christmas, in order to celebrate the expected coming of the Messias, they

keep what they call the feast of the holy fathers, that is the

commemoration of the saints of the old Law. They give the name of

Ante-Feast of the Nativity to December 20, 21, 22, and 23; and although

they say the Office of several saints on these four days, yet the mystery

of the birth of Jesus pervades the whole liturgy.

History of Advent (contd)

The oldest document in which we find the length and exercises of Advent

mentioned with anything like clearness, is a passage in the second book of

the History of the Franks by St. Gregory of Tours, where he says that St.

Perpetuus, one of his predecessors, who held that see about the year 480,

had decreed a fast three times a week, from the feast of St. Martin until

Christmas. It would be impossible to decide whether St. Perpetuus, by his

regulations, established a new custom, or merely enforced an already

existing law. Let us, however, note this interval of forty, or rather of

forty-three days, so expressly mentioned, and consecrated to penance, as

though it were a second Lent, though less strict and severe than that

which precedes Easter.

Later on, we find the ninth canon of the first Council of Macon, held in

582, ordaining that during the same interval between St. Martin's day and

Christmas, the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, should be fasting days,

and that the Sacrifice should be celebrated according to the lenten rite.

Not many years before that, namely in 567, the second Council of Tours had

enjoined the monks to fast from the beginning of December till Christmas.

This practice of penance soon extended to the whole forty days, even for

the laity: and it was commonly called St. Martin's Lent. The capitularia

of Charlemagne, in the sixth book, leave us no doubt on the matter; and

Rabanus Maurus, in the second book of his Institution of clerics, bears

testimony to this observance. There were even special rejoicings made on

St. Martin's feast, just as we see them practised now at the approach of

Lent and Easter.

The obligation of observing this Lent, which, though introduced so

imperceptibly, had by degrees acquired the force of a sacred law, began to

be relaxed, and the forty days from St. Martin's day to Christmas were

reduced to four weeks. We have seen that this fast began to be observed

first in France; but thence it spread into England, as we find from

Venerable Bede's history; into Italy, as appears from a diploma of

Astolphus, king of the Lombards, dated 753; into Germany, Spain, &c., of

which the proofs may be seen in the learned work of Dom Martene, On the

ancient rites of the Church. The first allusion to Advent's being reduced

to four weeks is to be found in the ninth century, in a letter of Pope St.

Nicholas I to the Bulgarians. The testimony of Ratherius of Verona, and of

Abbo of Fleury, both writers of the tenth century, goes also to prove

that, even then, the question of reducing the duration of the Advent fast

by one-third was seriously entertained. It is true that St. Peter Damian,

in the eleventh century, speaks of the Advent fast as still being for

forty days; and that St. Louis, two centuries later, kept it for that

length of time; but as far as this holy king is concerned, it is probable

that it was only his own devotion which prompted him to this practice.

The discipline of the Churches of the west, after having reduced the time

of the Advent fast, so far relented, in a few years, as to change the fast

into a simple abstinence; and we even find Councils of the twelfth

century, for instance Selingstadt in 1122, and Avranches in 1172, which

seem to require only the clergy to observe this abstinence. The Council of

Salisbury, held in 1281, would seem to expect none but monks to keep it.

On the other hand (for the whole subject is very confused, owing, no

doubt, to there never having been any uniformity of discipline regarding

it in the western Church), we find Pope Innocent III, in his letter to the

bishop of Braga, mentioning the custom of fasting during the whole of

Advent, as being at that time observed in Rome; and Durandus, in the same

thirteenth century, in his Rational on the Divine Offices, tells us that,

in France, fasting was uninterruptedly observed during the whole of that

holy time.

This much is certain, that, by degrees, the custom of fasting so far fell

into disuse, that when, in 1362, Pope Urban V endeavoured to prevent the

total decay of the Advent penance, all he insisted upon was that all the

clerics of his court should keep abstinence during Advent, without in any

way including others, either clergy or laity, in this law. St. Charles

Borromeo also strove to bring back his people of Milan to the spirit, if

not to the letter, of ancient times. In his fourth Council, he enjoins the

parish priests to exhort the faithful to go to Communion on the Sundays,

at least, of Lent and Advent; and afterwards addressed to the faithful

themselves a pastoral letter, in which, after having reminded them of the

dispositions wherewith they ought to spend this holy time, he strongly

urges them to fast on the Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, at least, of

each week in Advent. Finally, Pope Benedict XIV, when archbishop of

Bologna, following these illustrious examples) wrote his eleventh

Ecclesiastical Institution for the purpose of exciting in the minds of his

diocesans the exalted idea which the Christians of former times had of the

holy season of Advent, and of removing an erroneous opinion which

prevailed in those parts, namely, that Advent concerned religious only and

not the laity. He shows them that such an opinion, unless it be limited to

the two practices of fasting and abstinence, is, strictly speaking, rash

and scandalous, since it cannot be denied that, in the laws and usages of

the universal Church, there exist special practices, having for their end

to prepare the faithful for the great feast of the birth of Jesus Christ.

The Greek Church still continues to observe the fast of Advent, though

with much less rigour than that of Lent. It consists of forty days,

beginning with November 14, the day on which this Church keeps the feast

of the apostle St. Philip. During this entire period, the people abstain

from flesh-meat, butter, milk, and eggs; but they are allowed, which they

are not during Lent, fish, oil, and wine. Fasting, in its strict sense, is

binding only on seven out of the forty days; and the whole period goes

under the name of St. Philip's Lent. The Greeks justify these relaxations

by this distinction: that the Lent before Christmas is, so they say, only

an institution of the monks, whereas the Lent before Easter is of

apostolic institution.

The History of Advent

The History of Advent

The name Advent (From the Latin word Adventus, which signifies a coming)

is applied, in the Latin Church, to that period of the year, during which

the Church requires the faithful to prepare for the celebration of the

feast of Christmas, the anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ. The

mystery of that great day had every right to the honour of being prepared

for by prayer and works of penance; and, in fact, it is impossible to

state, with any certainty, when this season of preparation (which had long

been observed before receiving its present name of Advent) was first

instituted. It would seem, however, that its observance first began in the

west, since it is evident that Advent could not have been looked on as a

preparation for the feast of Christmas, until that feast was definitively

fixed to the twenty-fifth of December; which was done in the east only

towards the close of the fourth century; whereas it is certain that the

Church of Rome kept the feast on that day at a much earlier period.

We must look upon Advent in two different lights: first, as a time of

preparation, properly so called, for the birth of our Saviour, by works of

penance: and secondly, as a series of ecclesiastical Offices drawn up for

the same purpose. We find, as far back as the fifth century, the custom of

giving exhortations to the people in order to prepare them for the feast

of Christmas. We have two sermons of Saint Maximus of Turin on this

subject, not to speak of several others which were formerly attributed to

St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, but which were probably written by St.

Cesarius of Aries. If these documents do not tell us what was the duration

and what the exercises of this holy season, they at least show us how

ancient was the practice of distinguishing the time of Advent by special

sermons. Saint Ivo of Chartres, St. Bernard, and several other doctors of

the eleventh and twelfth centuries, have left us set sermons de Adventu

Domini, quite distinct from their Sunday homilies on the Gospels of that

season. In the capitularia of Charles the Bald, in 846, the bishops

admonish that prince not to call them away from their Churches during Lent

or Advent, under pretext of affairs of the State or the necessities of

war, seeing that they have special duties to fulfil, and particularly that

of preaching during those sacred times.