ADVENT. – It is the period marking the beginning of the liturgical year and the preparation for Christmas (v.), just as Lent (v.) does for Easter. In the Roman rite it begins on the Sunday closest to the feast of St Andrew the Apostle (thus from 27 Nov. to 3 Dec.) and thus consists of four weeks; in the Ambrosian rite it begins on the Sunday following the feast of St Martin (11 Nov.) and lasts about six weeks. As Lent accentuates its function in proximity to Easter (Holy Week), so too does Advent with the O antiphons (v.) in the Roman rite and the ferial days of *exceptato* (from 3 to 6 days) in the Ambrosian rite. It has a twofold character: penitential and joyful. Therefore, in its office the colour violet is used, the *Gloria in excelsis* and the *Te Deum* are omitted, while the singing of the Alleluia and the playing of the organ continue, though the latter is silent at the offices of the Sundays (only in the Roman rite and with the exception of the Third Sunday) and of the ferial days (also in the Ambrosian rite).
I. ORIGIN
1. In the East. With the emergence of the Nestorian heresy, a feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, already existing in Constantinople (after the Council of Ephesus, throughout the East), probably on the Sunday before Christmas, had as its object the virginal conception, but with probable allusions to divine maternity. The controversy with Nestorius led the defenders of orthodoxy to insist, in the homilies of this feast, on the note of maternity, as St Proclus did, for example, on Sunday, 23 Dec. 428. The thought of the Fathers can thus be summarised: recall of man’s original state in the earthly paradise and of his fall through original sin; the divine plan of the Incarnation and Redemption; Mary, the new Eve; her divine maternity foretold by the prophets, announced by the Angel, manifested on Christmas Day and later recognised by the Magi. But the memory of the mysteries preceding the coming of the Messiah required the commemoration of the Precursor. Indeed, we know that by the mid-5th century in Jerusalem, Antioch, and elsewhere, St John the Baptist was remembered on the Sunday before that dedicated to the Mother of God. After the 5th century, however, it must be noted how in the East the feasts are no longer ordered according to a logical criterion (Christ as the centre of the liturgical year and everything directed towards Him), but chronologically. Thus the Annunciation, or feast of the Divine Maternity, is moved to 25 March, and then the Sundays, or the days before Christmas, are dedicated to the figures of the Old and New Testaments who had either figured in or prophesied the Christ.2. In the West
The attribution of Advent to St Peter and its existence in the time of Tertullian and St Cyprian having now been discarded, the earliest testimonies are a passage from St Hilary (d. c. 366) which says: «Sancta Mater Ecclesia Salvatoris adventum annuo recursu per trium septimanarum secretum spatium sibi indicavit» (CSEL, 65, 16) and a canon of the Council of Saragossa (380): «Viginti et uno die, a XVI Kal. Januarii, continuis diebus, nulli liceat de ecclesia se absentare, nec latere in domibus, nec nudis pedibus incedere, sed concurrere ad ecclesiam» (PL 85, 66). Although Wilmart defended the authenticity of the first (in Revue Bénédictine, 27 [1910], pp. 500 ff.), and Cabrol the importance of the second, these two texts are still considered by some as not very probative, so that the existence of Advent at the close of the 4th century remains doubtful. Perhaps there was in embryo a preparation for the two feasts of Christmas-Epiphany, as suggested by the exhortations of a Spanish ascetic (c. 400) to a friend to spend the last days of the year and the feasts that were celebrated in a holy manner, even by abstaining from the use of marriage. The fact remains that in the 5th century there were two aspects of Advent, one in Ravenna, of an Eastern (theological) spirit, and the other in Gaul, essentially ascetic (penitential) and initially unrelated to a framework of the liturgical year. The scroll of Ravenna, containing 40 preparatory orations for Christmas and judged to be of an age close to the Council of Ephesus (430), is the clearest and most certain testimony of Advent in the West. It is, one might say, illustrated by the homilies of St Peter Chrysologus for the feasts of the Annunciation and Conception of St John the Baptist and of the virginal Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, probably celebrated on the two Sundays before Christmas. The affinity with the Eastern conception is clear and finds an explanation in the residence in Ravenna of the imperial court, closely linked to Constantinople.In Gaul, on the other hand, Advent has the same function for Christmas as Lent has for Easter; St Gregory of Tours (d. 594) says it was instituted by Perpetuus, the sixth bishop of Tours. It consists of a six-week fast from St Martin’s Day to Christmas, 43 days, during which the liturgy takes on a penitential character. There is as yet no appropriate formulary, which, however, slowly takes shape with an epilogue in the 7th century, and where the influence of the Eastern conception is noted, so much so as to constitute the fusion of the two aspects of Advent. This occurs most notably in countries of Gallican influence but not devoid of relations with the East, such as Spain (Mozarabic rite) and Milan (Ambrosian rite), which have a six-week Advent. At Rome, the homilies of St Gregory the Great first attest to a true preparatory period for Christmas, which is of five weeks in the Gelasian Sacramentary and of four in the Gregorian. This latter manner eventually prevailed universally, not certainly because of the symbolism of the supposed 4000 years from Adam to Christ, but by analogy with the forty days of Lent: thus by influence from Gaul, from which in the 7th century the fast and later the penitential rites were also taken.
II. SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE
While originally Eastern Advent had no penitential character, in the 8th century it acquired one with fasting, which, in the West, together with prolonged prayer and more frequent rites, created a time of intensified asceticism in preparation for Christmas. Of this penitential character, only an echo remains today in the rites and in the prohibition of celebrating solemn weddings. Advent invites meditation on the three comings of Christ, kept alive in the mind by the voice of the prophets and the insistent preaching of the Baptist: 1) the temporal coming, when, incarnate and made man in the most pure womb of the Virgin Mary, He was born in Bethlehem; 2) the final coming, when at the end of time He will come to judge the living and the dead; 3) the mystical coming, whenever He comes to dwell or to take greater possession, through grace, of a soul that has detested sin or accomplished works of good. The Church, with the Gospel reading of the last coming on the first Sunday, indicates the starting point and the dominant thought of the entire renewal to be accomplished in order to prepare fittingly for Christmas.ENRICO CATTANEO