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.