In this episode, John and Father Stephen uncover the profound anticipation of the Nativity and the second coming of Christ. Feel the pulse of ancient traditions come alive in our present, binding the sacred with the rhythm of our daily lives. Their conversation offers a unique perspective on the dual focus of Advent, delving into the liturgical practices that bring the mystery of salvation into the now and illuminate the eschatological longing embedded within the Church's history.
As the Advent season reaches its crescendo, they traverse the rich tapestry of the O Antiphons, which beautifully encapsulate the Old Testament's prophecies and the collective longing for the Messiah. Father Stephen guides us through the enigmatic verses, each one a stepping stone toward the celebration of Jesus' birth. The purpose of ritual and prayer invites you to transcend the mechanics of religious observance, engaging with the deeper relational aspects of these practices. They reflect on the significance of prayer as not just a routine but a heartfelt communion with God.
Concluding with poignant reflections from 2 Peter, they underscore the power of steadfast faith in the face of darkness. The Advent hymns and scriptures stir a deep yearning for renewal and restoration, offering a glimpse into our innate desire for divine intervention. Join us on this enlightening expedition as we journey towards the light of Epiphany, carrying the spirit of Christmas rejuvenation well into the New Year. This episode is an invitation to deepen your understanding of Advent, not just as a historical event but as a living promise of hope and transformation.
Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!
In this episode, John and Father Stephen uncover the profound anticipation of the Nativity and the second coming of Christ. Feel the pulse of ancient traditions come alive in our present, binding the sacred with the rhythm of our daily lives. Their conversation offers a unique perspective on the dual focus of Advent, delving into the liturgical practices that bring the mystery of salvation into the now and illuminate the eschatological longing embedded within the Church's history.
As the Advent season reaches its crescendo, they traverse the rich tapestry of the O Antiphons, which beautifully encapsulate the Old Testament's prophecies and the collective longing for the Messiah. Father Stephen guides us through the enigmatic verses, each one a stepping stone toward the celebration of Jesus' birth. The purpose of ritual and prayer invites you to transcend the mechanics of religious observance, engaging with the deeper relational aspects of these practices. They reflect on the significance of prayer as not just a routine but a heartfelt communion with God.
Concluding with poignant reflections from 2 Peter, they underscore the power of steadfast faith in the face of darkness. The Advent hymns and scriptures stir a deep yearning for renewal and restoration, offering a glimpse into our innate desire for divine intervention. Join us on this enlightening expedition as we journey towards the light of Epiphany, carrying the spirit of Christmas rejuvenation well into the New Year. This episode is an invitation to deepen your understanding of Advent, not just as a historical event but as a living promise of hope and transformation.
Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!
Welcome to the my Friend the Friar podcast and thanks for listening. If you like my Friend the Friar and want to support us, please consider subscribing or following us. If you haven't already done so, and if you found us on YouTube, then don't forget to click the notification bell when you subscribe so you'll be notified of new episodes when they release. Thanks again and God bless. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me. It's not supposed to be funny. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks for joining me and my Friend the Friar. Father Steven Sanchez, a Discounts Caramelite Priest. Good morning, father. Good morning, it's almost good afternoon. We've been taking our sweet time.
Speaker 2:Trying to get set up.
Speaker 1:I don't know why we always have technology problems. This shouldn't be this hard, but it is, and we're in person Again yay. So I will try to make sure I speak into the microphone instead of looking away at you and sounding like I'm in the distance. All right, this is a follow up to your solo flight. You did so good doing your.
Speaker 2:That was so weird though.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is weird when you have to do an episode by yourself. It's so lonely. It was so you spoke in your solo about Advent and now we're entering into the second part of Advent, the second half, and so we're going to be discussing that more deeply in a very I geek out about, because Advent is so metaphysical it's like inception, time and time and time and the past, and the present and the future, and where are we the kairos and the chronos?
Speaker 2:so that's the other part of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, we'll take it away.
Speaker 2:Well, I talked in my solo. I did a little intro to Advent and how Advent is a celebration of not just the nativity but the consequence of the nativity being the second coming of Christ, and how Advent is supposed to be a celebration of both. And sometimes we lose that. Sometimes we focus more on the nativity or the celebration of Christmas or the Christmas season and we forget that there is the eschaton, there is the end of all things and the first coming of Christ. The consequence of the first coming of Christ is then the second coming or the final judgment. We'll have to talk about the four last things eventually to make it One of these days.
Speaker 2:One of these days we'll do the four last things as well. And I wanted to start with a quote from the Catechism, and this is from number 524 of the Catechism. When the church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah. Or by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior's first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating the precursor's birth and martyrdom, john the Baptist, the church unites herself to his desire. He must increase, but I must decrease. So already it's a matter of okay. Trying to enter into the spirit of John the Baptist, who is anxious about the coming of Christ, who announces the coming of Christ, and for us as church, then, that we announce that he has been born, he has come into the world, he has died and is risen and will come again. Trying to get into that spirit of expectancy, and that spirit of joyful expectancy also. It shouldn't be fearful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, quick question. So you know how the mass is not a it's not so much a re-presentation of the Last Supper and the Lord's Passion. It is the same supper and the same passion, so it's the continuation. Yeah, so are all things liturgically, are all the liturgical things in the church the same way, or is it the same longing, or is it truly like a re-presentation of it?
Speaker 2:It is a deeper understanding of that longing. So it's the longing of Israel for the coming of the Messiah. But we, as believers, know that the Messiah has come, but now we await the second coming. So it's the same expectancy, but it's not the expectancy of the Messiah finally coming. We know the Messiah has come. For us it's the final revelation of all things, the day of the Lord right. The Old Testament prophets speak about, and that's the expectancy. It is that expectancy of John the Baptist.
Speaker 1:Also is Easter. Similarly, is it a celebration of the thing that happened or is it the thing that happened being present now?
Speaker 2:It's the making it present. The liturgy is always about oh yeah because I guess Easter is.
Speaker 1:All Is the liturgy.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, so it's one of the things that it's kind of hard to explain. There is the chyros, which is God's time, and there's cronos, which is the way we measure time, or we would say secular time or worldly time. And a lot of times during the special privileged seasons, whether it's Christmas or Easter season, the scripture will talk about the today of salvation. The today of salvation is the today of Christ's coming, which is the same today. So it is making, it's still the, it is making present that celebration. Yeah, so it's not remembering as much as it is entering into the timeless mystery of salvation that make sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's mind boggling, but I love it.
Speaker 2:It's very strange because and a lot of people don't understand or don't appreciate the timelessness of the celebration. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Mass, I think, is a great example of it, because it is the same celebration or it's the same passion. Yes, so it's just so. It's weird, it's this time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so it's not that Christ dies again. He's only died once. But this is the perpetual celebration of the Last Supper.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's the parallel to the paschal feast, right Of Passover right. So he says go do this every year, kind of thing it's.
Speaker 2:Don't remember it, but make this thing present.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right Side note over.
Speaker 2:So, as I said in that first episode on Advent, I talked about the two stages of Advent in getting ready for the celebration of the Nativity. So the first stage of Advent is from the first Sunday of Advent through the 16th of December, and in this first stage we remember the incarnation as the answer to the promise that God made to Israel of sending the Messiah. And that promise begins in the book of Genesis when God talks to Eve and says that, or he talks to the serpent and says that there is, will be, this enmity between the child and Satan. Right. And this first part of Advent gives an emphasis or a vigilance of the final coming. It's a carryover of the last couple of weeks of the liturgical year that we end with Christ the King and expecting the final coming. Right, it's a little carryover of that. And so this first part of Advent is about being ready for the second coming and asking ourselves if we are ready to face the King of the universe. Right. And so the first part of Advent, the preface of the first part of Advent, reads he assumed that his first coming, the lowliness of human flesh, when he comes again in glory and majesty and all is at last made manifest. We who watch for that day may inherit the great promise in which we now dare to hope. So that's kind of the spirit of the first part of Advent. It's an affirmation that the coming of the Lord has come in flesh and at the same time it is an affirmation that we believe that he is going to come in glory, and all creation, all nations will see him finally, right. And Saint Cyril of Jerusalem says, we do not preach only one coming of Christ, but a second as well, much more glorious than the first. The first coming was marked by patience. The second will bring the crown of a divine kingdom, so establishing Jesus Christ as King of the universe. Finally, the definitive revelation right.
Speaker 2:So then, in our liturgy, as we celebrate the second stage of our Advent, preparation for the celebration of the Nativity runs from December 17th through December 24th. So from the 17th to the 24th, the readings focus more on the preparation for the celebration of the Nativity, or Christmas, and the coming of salvation. In the today of our current celebration of the Nativity, christmas, the gospel readings walk us through the enunciation and births of John the Baptist, the Herald of the Lord, and that of Jesus of Nazareth. So in the preface of the second part of Advent. The preface reads For all the oracles of the prophets foretold him, the Virgin Mother longed for him with love beyond all telling. John the Baptist sang of his coming and proclaimed his presence when he came". So again. So now, it's an immediate preparation for the incarnation On December 17th in the Divine Office.
Speaker 2:In the Liturgy of the Hours, the scripture reading for morning prayer is taken from Isaiah 11, verses 1 through 3. A shoot shall sprout from the stump of Jesse and from his roots a bud shall blossom. The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, a Spirit of wisdom and understanding, a Spirit of counsel and of strength, a Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord. And for that same day, the first reading for the Eucharist that day is from Genesis, chapter 49, verses verse 2 and verses 8 through 10, and references that an everlasting King will come from the tribe of Judah. So Genesis says Jacob called his sons and said to them Assemble and listen, sons of Jacob, listen to Israel, your father.
Speaker 2:And then verses 8 through 10, you, judah, shall your brothers praise your hand on the neck of your enemies, the sons of your father shall bow down to you, judah, like a lion's wealth. You have grown up on pray, my son. He crotches like a lion, recumbent. The king of beasts. Who would dare rouse him? The sceptre shall never depart from Judah, or the mace from between his legs while tribute is brought to him and he receives the people's homage. So this is a victorious presentation, then, of the Messiah that is to come, and so the gospel from that day, from the 17th, is taken from Matthew, and it is the genealogy of Jesus. Right, the whole begat, begat begat, begat, begat.
Speaker 2:We have all the salvation history right.
Speaker 2:And also part of the liturgy. This is how rich it is. There's so many parts to the second part of Advent. During the season of Advent from the 17th to the 23rd, there is also within the liturgy something that most people pass over, and that is the appearance of what was called the O antiphons. They're called O because that is that they begin with the O like O. Come, o, come in manual moment O. These antiphons are taken from the Old Testament, the prophecies, and they come from the wisdom books as well, and all of these are qualities that are attributed to the Messiah or to the Christ from the very beginnings of the community of faith, right from the church. So during the season, the liturgical readings and chants, selected chiefly from Isaiah, announced the coming of the Messiah. And the closer the feast of Christmas approaches, the more the liturgy accentuates its call to the Savior with a cry come, benny right, benny right. And the reason I wanted to point out the scripture readings for morning prayer of the 17th and its first reading from the Eucharist is that it's all tied to an old liturgical custom of the O antiphons, which is you, which used to be used as the entrance antiphons for the Eucharist. So you get your missile.
Speaker 2:During this time, the entrance antiphon will be one of the O antiphons and it's also used to be sung during the divine office. Those are beautiful Gregorian chants. They used to go with the O antiphons for the divine office and the monastic observance, and so now they're used in the liturgy. For today they're used as antiphons for the evening gospel catechal for Vespers. So the antiphons are O sapiensia, which is wisdom, and so the O antiphon is O wisdom of our God, most high guiding creation with power and love. Come to teach us the path of knowledge. That's taken from ecclesiasties.
Speaker 2:The second O antiphon would then be, on the 18th, o Adonai, o sacred Lord of the house of Israel, giver of the law to Moses on Sinai, come to rescue us with your mighty power, and that's taken from Exodus. And then on the 19th, o radix yesi, o root of Jesse's stem, sign of God's love for all his people. Come to save us without delay. That's taken from Isaiah. Then, on the 20th, o clavis David, o key of David, opening the gates of God's eternal kingdom. Come and free the prisoners of darkness, and that's taken from the book of Revelation and Isaiah as well.
Speaker 2:And then, on the 21st, the O antiphon is O orians, and that is O radiant dawn, splendor of eternal light, son of justice, come and shine on those who dwell in darkness and in the shadow of death, and that's taken from the prophet Zechariah. Then, on the 22nd, o Rex Gentium, o king of all the nations and keystone of the church, come and save man, whom you formed from the dust, and that's taken from the prophet Haggai. Then, on the 23rd, the O antiphon is O Emmanuel, o King and giver of law, come to save us, lord, our God, and that's taken from Isaiah. So these O antiphons, this is supposed to be a manifestation of the yearning of the people of God, the yearning of the church for the Lord, for his coming.
Speaker 2:What I find very interesting and beautiful about this is there's also a hidden response from Christ to his church. Because if you take these cries of the church to Christ and observe the letters of these cries, which is S, then A, then R, then C, then O, then R, then E, and that is the church inבהere speaking to Christ, but if you look at those and you look at them backwards, as a response from Christ to his church, then it's E-R-O-C-R-A-S and it reads Arrow Cross, which means tomorrow I will come.
Speaker 1:That is just so mind-blowing it is. It's like who sat? And yeah, we sit around, had too much to do.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, thinking about this, and it just blows my mind that the O-Antiphons is not only us expressing our yearning for Christ, but it is Christ's response to us, meaning saying yes, tomorrow I will come.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Sorry, not too much to do, not enough to do. Right, Like somebody had too much time on their hands because. But it's so, oh, it's like a whatever, that movie that's so fake, whatever, like the Tom Hanks movie where he's like the detective and it's all the Jesus stuff. Oh, DaVinci Code.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, I never saw it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. I mean it's like a movie, but it's, it's a movie. You know what I mean. But anyway, it's like code within code, because all that ends on the 23rd and then the 24th is the eve of his coming and it's just like what? Like I would be really curious history nerd to find out when that was made. Like, how old is that?
Speaker 2:The O-Antiphons. Yeah, I don't know what to do. I do have to do a deep dive, yeah, but apparently it was an old monastic observance, an old monastic tradition, so it has to go back 600, 500.
Speaker 1:Maybe, yeah, but what I think is really amazing about this too and man, we've I feel that we have, we as a church have forgotten. I don't want to say we've lost, we've forgotten how to be the church, at least, I think, from the Laity standpoint, because I think this is case in point. This is a daily thing, right, and the liturgy of the hour is like this is this daily prayer, and this prayer is integrated into our existence and our lives and all that. It's not just Sunday, it's everything that leads up to Sunday. And if you go to Daily Mass and you, the readings on Sunday make a lot more sense if you've been to Daily Mass or at least read the readings throughout the week, because then you see where it's going.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And you see how you get through the Basically the entire Bible in these three-year cycles, because there's little bits every day and I don't know just there's something here, right, there's something that we're just it's. If everyone did this.
Speaker 2:I think part of it, too, is we get comfortable with things or things that get passed on to us and nobody really explains what is being passed on to us, other than it's being passed on, and people forget the reason or they just assume that as you're passing it on, it goes back to the whole idea we're talking on the podcast on Big T-Little T-Rite the whole idea of tradition that's passed on and the cultural limitations, and trying to understand and trying to communicate something divine.
Speaker 2:So all of that is part of this whole complicated attempt, and I think what happens is we forget the richness of the faith and the richness of the signs and symbols that we already possess. And it's a matter of diving into the signs and symbols that we possess already in terms of whether it's sacred space, whether it's beeswax, candles huai, candles, huai, the elements of water, oil, fire, all those things, bread, wine, all those things. There are some very deep, beautiful things that are signified and we just pass them on without really understanding what it is that they signify and we lose that part of that. And again, going to talk just about the liturgy, the beauty of the liturgy, the beauty of the entrance, the beauty of what it is that God is asking of us as we try to respond to His revelation to us, the mystery of it. And sometimes people get caught up in minutia that doesn't really matter, or they make it a rallying point, or they make it in a banner waving or sloganism or whatever it might be right, and they lose sight of the greater mystery that is being celebrated. And I think that's where a lot of the problem is they're missing the forest for the trees, and so they're focusing on something that is it is important in their cultural signs and symbols. And a lot of times it has to do again with the culture.
Speaker 2:For example, the other day we were talking in the community about the in the Tridentine celebration. Eventually, what happened was there's something they call the Maniple, which was a little piece of cloth that hung on the left wrist of the priest. It was like a tiny little stole that hung down right. Well, actually, the route to that was they had a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off of themselves because they had all these layers of stuff. And so they had a. It was a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from the celebrant all these layers of clothing as he's celebrating and all of a sudden it became spiritualized and liturgicized and became this thing I like. Well, now you can't wipe the sweat with that, because it's gold brocade.
Speaker 2:You cut your face if you try to wipe the sweat and so like, and you know, so we did away with a man up, like like no, you don't understand. You don't understand where it comes from. You don't understand. And the whole purpose of the renewal of the liturgy from Sakhirisangham Kanchiliam was getting back to the root, getting back to the source, right, and there's enough beauty in the liturgy itself that you don't need to add to it. Just discover the beauty of the mystery itself and preach on that teach on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, why do you think we things like well, and maybe let me ask this first Do you think it like daily mass and liturgy of the hours and all these beautiful ways of integrating your Christianity into your life or discipleship into your existence? Do you think it was ever as widespread as my little brain like dreams it was, or do you? And thus we've kind of moved away from it somehow culturally over time across all the cultures, or maybe it wasn't. You know what I mean. Like, and I'm just romanticizing it because it seems to me like it's so rich that like why would you ever let it go?
Speaker 2:I think there's always been levels of understanding in terms of that. You know the community of faith, right, you have people who understand what they're celebrating, and so you have those who left, for example, liturgists, or you have monastic communities, that whose whole purpose is you know the fidelity to the liturgy, right, and even then, what can happen is it's easy to get stuck in the task or get distracted by the task and forget the reason for it.
Speaker 2:Right, and my understanding is there's always been a call, always will be a call, to understand the reason for what it is that we are doing what we're doing. And going back to the prophets, right, the prophets were always calling them, calling Israel back like it's not sacrifice. I want it's mercy, exactly. And you're going like what you mean? All these cows and goats and sheep and turtle doves that were killing. You're like you don't understand what they symbolize. They symbolize something. They signify something. Get to you know, try to understand what it is that they signify. Yes, ritual is important, but ritual this is one of the things that bothers me and I try not to say anything because I don't want to give it to that.
Speaker 2:What bothers me is that what happens is that ritual becomes the idol. It's something that you idolize, and then now, in your attempt to worship God, you're actually not worship God. You're worshiping God. You're worshiping.
Speaker 1:The worship of God you worshiping exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and they come. Worshipper of the rubrics and like no, that's. The rubrics are guides. Yes, they're important, but you forget that, that there's something deeper here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so religion is a virtue, but it's not the motion that is the virtue.
Speaker 2:Correct.
Speaker 1:So you gotta get to that layer Correct and a lot of people can't get past the doing.
Speaker 2:It's impossible. They're just task oriented and it's impossible for them to get to the understanding. And once one of my directees I told I want you to do some lexio divina, right, so learn how to pray with the scriptures, right. Then came back a couple of months later Okay, I'm done.
Speaker 1:You mastered it already.
Speaker 2:Right, then you didn't understand what I was getting at, apparently, right. So, again, it's a matter of okay. It's hard to move away from the task orientation, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:One of the books I always recommend to people to read that are willing to do the deep dive is by Eric Fromm To have or To Be, and it is philosophically right. It's an understanding of do I define myself by what I do or do I enter into the self definition or the self understanding by being that I am a being? I might do, but my identity does not reside in the doing. My identity resides in the being, and that's the challenge.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and all of that is funny because all goes back to what we were chatting about before we started recording about prayer right.
Speaker 1:It's the task or it's the being right, because if you don't, understand your relationship to God, then you don't understand what prayer is, and you can even be told it apparently over and, over and over again and still not get it, until the little light bulb turns on kind of thing, and even then you still don't get it right. So you're going to have to spend that time, and in the last episode maybe we were talking about contemplation being for everyone or for being for just select people and then the catechism.
Speaker 1:In here they're talking about meditation, contemplation, all the different ways to pray and all that kind of stuff. And you and I had said the concern is for the younger generation and us adults too. For some of us where it's like you can't get away from the noise, you can't find the silence, you don't make time for the silence to be able to enter into that relationship, and yeah, I don't know, all those things are just like connected and it's good. It's good, it's good. Yeah, I'll let you finish now.
Speaker 2:No, thank you for that, because I think it is. I think it's trying to master God. You can't. One of the most difficult things for us is to really allow the mystery to be mystery, and some attempt to continually define and box right. And allowing God to be God is very difficult for people and it's very challenging. It can be mind blowing and earth shaking, but it's supposed to be and that's part of the whole. Transformation is to really come to terms with our mortality, our finiteness and the fact that the infinite, transcendent God desires to reach out to me, and that is.
Speaker 1:It's scary, yes, right, because you get to a point where you start, when you start realizing the immensity of something. In my brain I kind of equate it Like I know that if you fall you're gonna die.
Speaker 1:If you fall far enough, you're gonna die and so then you're I don't know you're on the deck and it's four inches down. You're probably gonna be okay. Maybe not, but probably. If you're at the Grand Canyon or if you're on a really tall building, like on the roof right, you get to that point where, as you approach the edge and you start to understand that just past the edge is something beyond you, it becomes very scary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that's part of the whole. John of the Cross talks about the dark night of the soul, the dark night of the spirit, and that is where the soul has to actually let go of their understanding and idea of God and allow God to be who God is, instead of our definition of God, our understanding of God, our desire to and that's very, very difficult to enter into the darkness of faith. And but again, it's not dark. And if you really have faith and if you really believe that God is a loving God, even the fact that you can't define Him is okay, and part of it is just learning to let go.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and what's really weird, I guess, is all these mind-blowing kind of things that we're talking about. To bring it back to what we're supposed to be talking about, is he entered into the world?
Speaker 2:Yes right, like Whatever that, whatever that is, that is God like entered into our reality, right and the Christ event right, and so we talk about God erupting into human history, and erupting not er but I are which is breaking in, not breaking out. So the erupting into human history, the consequence of that, and that's what Advent is. The Advent is what? Yeah, the transcendent, infinite being has broken into our human history in the person of Jesus Christ. To God and true man, sit and think about that Number. Somebody asked me once I Going to the holy land? Mm-hmm, would you like you know, are you interested in going to the holy land? Like no, why not? Why it's hot, besides, besides it being hot. I like hot, hot, it's not a problem. Yeah, I'm going like, I'm thinking like Jesus Christ, true God, true man, some of the living God, came into the world. Everything is holy if you really believe that he is who he is. Yeah, everything is.
Speaker 1:He has sanctified Everything yeah, all of reality is different the cosmic, the universe is different.
Speaker 2:Yeah and so what was it like before the incarnation? I have no idea. Will we ever know? Probably not, but the consequence of the fact that God has come into the world, that is, that is earth shaking. That is mind-blowing. Like why do I want to go to Israel? Historically okay. History, okay, fine.
Speaker 1:I go. We like your history stuff, history stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, but because it's holy, like Well, no, if you believe that Israel is holy and the United States is not, well then you don't believe Jesus is true God and true man. Because of the fact that he came into the world, the entire, the entire universe has been sanctified and is different. I will never be the same again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what does that mean about his church? Yes, and what is it? What does it mean about him coming back? Yes, you know, like yes, it's.
Speaker 2:Yes, and this, yeah, this is, this is just, this is something, this, that's what they call it the Christ event. It is an event oh, sorry for the tangent there so we talked a little bit, or some of this in the first episode that we did last year. On that I'm getting the most out of Advent, yeah, and I Would ask you go back to that getting the most out of Advent, and if not, if you choose not to, that's okay. In that Episode that we did a year ago, we talked about the first coming, which was historically in the past, and also the yearning for the second coming, which is in the future, whenever it is that that God will decide that that's gonna happen. There's also the additional time in our celebration, and that additional time is the abiding presence of Christ with his church in the now, through the presence of his Holy Spirit, as you were saying earlier, right, as it is the Holy Spirit in us in the present age that Motivates us to yearn for the coming of Christ, for the completion, for the consummation, for that final encounter With Christ, for the salvation of all, the restoration of all, getting back to the original design that God had for us and and the salvation of creation. So, then again, getting back to this Advent celebration, we then celebrate the past, the present and the future, the fact that Christ has come as True God and true man, the fact that Christ continues to be present with this church through the presence of his Holy Spirit, and the fact that Christ will come definitively, surrounded by angels in majestic glory, to to judge Heaven and earth right.
Speaker 2:So this is, this is the confession that the church instituted in its belief in Christ.
Speaker 2:This is what we believe, and that the church, our belief, transcends time, the chronos part right, we are a timeless.
Speaker 2:There's a part of us that is a timeless entity, but also we are walking in history as well. There's a part of us that is walking in history, but the church, the community of faith, there is the part that is with Christ or in glory now, and there is the part that is waiting to be purified completely. And there is us who continue to make that journey among the brokenness of the world that we find ourselves in. And so part of the whole Advent meditation is entering deeper into our own reflection on the mystery of salvation, where I find myself, where the church finds itself and where the church is heading, not just the church now, but the church that is already with Christ, the church that awaits to be with Christ right. And so one of the things that is important for us as a believing community is that we need to think about these things, because this is how we celebrate the mystery of the Nativity. I mean, just the other day we were somewhere over at the nuns.
Speaker 2:I was at the nuns in the middle and we were having a little Christmas celebration with the nuns in the secular order there and they wanted to sing Christmas carols. So we were there singing Christmas carols, and so they started singing Little Drummer Boy and Little Drummer Boy. I cry every time. Really, I cannot sing that, I cannot.
Speaker 1:That's so interesting Because I just break down. I was just about to ask you what's your favorite, carol. For me it's Okamakami manual. Well, versions of it, because sometimes it's all upbeat and I'm like no, they're longing for him to come it's longing. It shouldn't be some kind of upbeat kind of thing.
Speaker 2:No, it should be yearning and longing. Another one for me would be the first Noel. See those things. I need a couple of handkerchiefs.
Speaker 1:It just breaks me down. I like a holy night too. That's a good one, good one.
Speaker 2:So, again, I think part of it our celebration can be deeper and richer if we are preparing and we understand what it is that we're celebrating, right, that we are celebrating the first coming, the present of the Holy Spirit, but also the final coming of the Lord, when everything will be healed. Praise God. And again, maybe it's my own desire for healing that makes me break down, because there is that healing that I keep praying for and it's just not happening according to my time schedule, right. So, yeah, and I think the reality of the eschaton, the reality that Christ is coming in glory, I think it's something that needs to be emphasized, I think it's an important element that should be present in our celebration of Christmas and the Christmas season, all the way up until through epiphany and the baptism of the Lord.
Speaker 2:So let me end with a reading from 2 Peter. This is 2 Peter, chapter 1, verse 12, and verses 16 through 19. Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these things, though you know them and are established in the truth that you have, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty, for when he received honoring glory from God, the Father, and the voice was born to Him by the majestic glory. This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. We heard this voice, born on the holy mountain, and we have the prophetic word made more sure. You will do well to pay attention to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.
Speaker 1:Amen. Well, thank you for this. You're welcome. I love Advent. It's so good. Okay, everybody, thanks for joining us. Thank you, yes, hope you have a blessed.
Speaker 2:Advent. Advent and activities to the epiphany. Baptism of the Lord.
Speaker 1:Keep that Christmas spirit through next year. Yes, amen, all right, look at See you later. Bye, god bless.