Special to The B.C. Catholic
While thinking about the upcoming Advent season and wondering how it could be highlighted within the context of this Year of Faith proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI, I began to look for connections between the two.
I kept coming back to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is central to this Year of Faith as a resource for learning, sometimes re-learning, the truths of this faith we call our own. Then it became clear: four parts of the Catechism, four weeks of Advent.
All Catholics are being asked to refresh their faith, with an emphasis on knowledge. Too many of us are profoundly lacking in knowledge about what it is we profess to believe.
Perhaps we have a working knowledge of the Church and her teachings, but not enough to translate that knowledge into witness, something every baptized Catholic is required to do, and which the Holy Father has asked us to focus on in his apostolic letter on the Year of Faith Porta Fidei.
Make the Catechism a conversation piece. Read it in public. Invite questions. Pull together an impromptu Advent discussion group.
The first part of the Catechism, called "The Profession of Faith," takes us through salvation history, specifically how God has revealed Himself to man through creation, natural law, and Scripture - culminating in the ultimate revelation of God-made-man in Jesus Christ.
This whole part of the Catechism is actually mirrors exactly what Advent is all about: making way for Christ. All of salvation history was a preparation for the coming of Christ.
As the Catechism states, "God communicates Himself to man gradually. He prepares him to welcome by stages the supernatural revelation that is to culminate in the person and mission of the incarnate Word, Jesus Christ" (No. 52).
The readings for the first Sunday of Advent coincide with man's journey toward God. In the first reading the Prophet Jeremiah reminds the Jewish people what it is they are seeking.
"The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the House of Judah. In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land" (Jer 33:14-16).
This is the hope that defines the desires of the hearts of all people, both before the birth of Christ and during every Advent since His birth.
Most of part one of the Catechism explains, in great and beautiful detail, the Credo: "I Believe."
The section on "He was conceived by the Power of the Holy Spirit, and was born of the Virgin Mary," is a great source of prayerful meditation for Advent. Numbers 456 through 534 deal especially with Christ's incarnation, birth, and infancy.
As No. 524 points out, "When the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Saviour's first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for His second coming."
When Jesus talks of his second coming in Lk 21, He is telling us that our faith does not begin or end at the manger scene of His birth, but rather we are looking forward to His coming again, with a great hope for eternal life, as we profess at the end of the Creed.
Keeping Christ at the centre of our hearts is always the goal, especially in the Advent season.
As we begin this first week of this holy season of preparation, we can't go wrong with leafing through the first part of the Catechism that spells out exactly who we are as Christians and how God has loved us from the beginning of time, enough to send His only Son so that we may inherit eternal life.
Lazzuri writes from rural Nova Scotia. She can be reached at [email protected]