The Spatial-Temporal Impact of Advent: from the rising of the sun to its setting.
Today we are going to show how the Advent or Coming of Christ changes everything even space and time. The Greek word that scripture uses for the coming of the presence of Christ is parousia. Parousia is also the foundation for the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, for the presence of Christ in the Gospel accounts and is the word used when we speak of his 2nd Coming. It is in the word ‘presence’ or parousia that past and future meet, that space and time meet, that eternity and time meet, that heaven and earth meet and that divine and human meet. It is the coming or parousia of Christ that draws out of the Baptist the recognition that Jesus is the Lamb of God that has come to take away the sins of the world!
The Lord Jesus has come and he comes to change everything. By his presence we move from being in a just a material universe where we seem just to be an insignificant speck of dust on a ball spinning round one of a trillion suns into a sacred and sacramental Cosmos where we are movers and shakers because we are recipients of the eternal Spirit of God; for matter is comprehended by Spirit but Spirit is not comprehended by matter. Thus, Christ through the life of the Church transfigures the very foundations of our existence such that in the Spirit we are given new eyes to see and new ears to hear what is really real and it is all around us. It is also why, in the words of St Paul:
‘The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.’ (1 Cor 2:14)
Now Advent begins the Liturgical year of the Church so we have here something that reveals to us how God in Jesus Christ through the Church cultivates time into a liturgy of time. In Advent, Liturgy cultivates time into sacred time that we call the history of Salvation, by speaking of the promises made by God through the prophets that are fulfilled with the Advent of the God-Man. In Christmas and Christmastide up to and including Epiphany, God is cultivating also space. Space is being cultivated by God into sacred places as with Bethlehem and sacred encounters like the Epiphany. So space and time are revealed as serving the history of Salvation. It is the history of Salvation that is the crux of all history. It is the real story of events that gather and change a particular people into becoming a holy people, the people of God, by the cultivation of space and time into times and places filled with meaning, sacred meaning. Indeed even matter is being cultivated into being an instrument of the sacred for matter is being cultivated into sacraments wherein space and time, events and people are made sacred by the encounter with the divine persons of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and by the encounter with the spiritual creatures who are those angelic persons we call angels.
Peter Kreeft gives us a wonderful reflection on how Heaven makes sense of and perfects earth, time and space in his marvellous book ‘Everything you ever wanted to know about heaven; but never dreamed of asking’ from which I draw inspiration using his terminology. The Greeks had two words for time – Chronos and Kairos. Chronos is abstract but Kairos is concrete; Chronos is quantity but Kairos is quality; Chronos is the body of time that can be measured, quantified and calculated whilst Kairos is the soul of time when persons fill their times with meaning and purpose. Chronos is about when something happened but Kairos is why it happened. It is persons who transfigure Chronos-time into Kairos-time! This why the term Kairos is used for time throughout the Gospel accounts and it is why we experience time standing still or dragging or flying by!
The Greeks had two other words: Chora for Space and Topos for place. Chora or space is abstract but Topos or place is concrete. Space is what puts limits to things as to where they are and where they are not but place is what space means in the concrete here and now. It is persons who transfigure abstract space into a concrete place and fill it with meaning as we see when we transfigure a house into a home.
We have considered Space & Time – and discovered both Space & Place and Clock Time (Chronos) & Presence Time (Kairos). We have explored the four [Chronos time] and fifth Dimensions [Kairos time]. We now need to explore the 6th Dimension of Eternity.
Some think of Eternity as an ‘unimaginable long time.’ So, people spoke of Rome as the Eternal City because it had been around for such a long time. This is not what we mean when we say Eternal God.
Some think of Eternity as ‘unending time’ i.e. a line with no last point. Such an idea is “through all ages of ages”. Again this is not what we mean when we say Eternal God. This leads to the boredom-or-frustration idea of heaven like the rhyme about the bear that went over the mountain only to climb another mountain and another etc...
Some think of Eternity as ‘timeless’. There is a half-truth in this idea as we do experience ‘timeless moments’. The idea is that Eternity is a different dimension to Time.
In other words, Eternity is not just a quantity that is finitely more (no. 1) nor infinitely more (no. 2).
God has no beginning and no end because TIME is a creation of God. God cannot therefore be put into TIME nor can God be measured by TIME since TIME is created by God. It is for this reason that our prayers and our worship speak of God as ‘eternal’.
In our experience of time the past is gone and the future has not arrived, there is only the present. So, it is the present, the now, which is for us closest to what Eternity is really like. But for God all of time is alive and present to him as Scripture says:
“With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” (2 Peter 3:8).
From Eternity, TIME is correctable; as a writer can go back and forth in his story to write, re-write, correct, edit or change so too can God. If this is true, then petitionary and intercessory prayers do matter as God is the great Narrator and Editor of my time, my story and my history. Thus praying for others and for ourselves about time-past or time-future is never a waste of time!
So, God is the origin and giver of existence and thus to all places because he is the Ultimate personal presence, a presence which we call Heaven. By designing and creating everything, God gives it its real place, its place in relation to him BECAUSE He is the really real without which there would be nothing. Heaven is this true, real and eternal place because God is every things’ home. This is what we ultimately mean by the Kingdom of Heaven!
Therefore, the alternative to heaven is not earth, it is Hell! Earth is where we train to be really present to one another and the world. Hell is an absence, the refusal to be a person & treat others as persons. In other words, from the point of eternity all that seemed on earth will be either the beginning of hell or the beginning of heaven.
We come to the way treats time or rather cultivates time. There are two parts of how the Church cultivates time. The first part is obvious and it is the Sunday and weekday Masses hence we have the Liturgical Calendar with its liturgical seasons, solemnities, feasts, memorias and ferias. The second part is known by an increasing number of lay people in this parish and it is called the Liturgy of the Hours. It has many other names like the Breviary or the Divine Office, or Lauds, Vespers and Compline. Many have thought that this was only to be done by priests, monks and religious but in fact the Church calls us all to pray the Liturgy of the Hours either privately or communally.
The Day is structured by the Liturgy of the Hours into 7 hours for prayer:
Dawn is for the Office of Readings
Morning is for Lauds or Morning Prayer
Midday has three hours Terce, Sext and None (3rd, 6th and 9th hour)
Evening has Vespers or Evening prayer
And Night has Compline or Night Prayer.
Monks do all 7 hours, Priests do 5 hours and the Laity can do three hours (Morning, Evening and Night Prayer) or more if they like. Now the Church has been called to pray continuously and it is through the Liturgy of the Hours that she does in fact pray continuously. In the words of St Paul: Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus (1 Thess 5:16-18).
All over the world from the rising of the sun to its setting, in Cathedrals, monasteries, parish churches, in religious communities and in homes the prayer of the Church, the Liturgy of the Hours, is being offered up for the Church, for the World and for all in need. It is a most powerful prayer and it is captured beautifully in the hymn ‘The Day thou gavest, Lord, is ended’ especially in these words:
We thank Thee that Thy church, unsleeping,
While earth rolls onward into light,
Through all the world her watch is keeping,
And rests not now by day or night.
As o’er each continent and island
The dawn leads on another day,
The voice of prayer is never silent,
Nor dies the strain of praise away.
The sun that bids us rest is waking
Our brethren ’neath the western sky,
And hour by hour fresh lips are making
Thy wondrous doings heard on high.
So why not have a look at this possibility for your spiritual life and see if you would like to join the great army of prayer that greets the rising sun and the setting sun all over the world? You are never too young or too old to start cultivating your time for God because by your baptism you have been made into a royal priesthood!
Another way time and space is transfigured is found in the tradition of the Advent Wreath which is not just for a church but also for the family home which is also called the domestic church. In family practice, the Advent wreath is most appropriately lit at dinnertime after the blessing of the food. A traditional prayer service using the Advent wreath proceeds as follows:
On the First Sunday of Advent, the father of the family blesses the wreath, praying:
"O God, by whose word all things are sanctified, pour forth Thy blessing upon this wreath, and grant that we who use it may prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ and may receive from Thee abundant graces. Who livest and reignest forever. Amen."
He then continues for each of the days of the first week of Advent,
"O Lord, stir up Thy might, we beg thee, and come, that by Thy protection we may deserve to be rescued from the threatening dangers of our sins and saved by Thy deliverance. Who livest and reignest forever. Amen."
The youngest child then lights one purple candle.
During the Second week of Advent, the father prays:
"O Lord, stir up our hearts that we may prepare for Thy only begotten Son, that through His coming we may be made worthy to serve Thee with pure minds. Who livest and reignest forever. Amen."
The oldest child then lights the purple candle from the first week plus one more purple candle.
During the Third week of Advent, the father prays:
"O Lord, we beg Thee, incline Thy ear to our prayers and enlighten the darkness of our minds by the grace of Thy visitation. Who livest and reignest forever. Amen."
The mother then lights the two previously lit purple candles plus the rose candle.
Finally, the father prays during the Fourth week of Advent,
"O Lord, stir up Thy power, we pray Thee, and come; and with great might help us, that with the help of Thy grace, Thy merciful forgiveness may hasten what our sins impede. Who livest and reignest forever. Amen."
The father then lights all of the candles of the wreath. Of course, this prayer service can be adapted to meet a family’s particular needs.
Finally, note that from ancient times Christians prayed facing East; traditionally called Ad Orientem. Indeed, they built churches facing East, they offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass facing East and they had the altars in the family home against the Eastward facing wall of the house. For the early Christians the Sun that rises in the East had become a sacramental of Our Lord’s Resurrection and his Parousia too! We can truly say that the Lord Jesus will come again at his Second Coming, the Parousia, and this truth is now enscribed on the Sun that rises everyday and everywhere in the East.
