6/25/2023 0 Comments Privatus dei filioThere must be a void-a gap in time-between now and the something for which we wait. If we are really anticipating something, then that “something” must be missing. Everywhere we turn, we are confronted with frantic-indeed chaotic-business and swirling illumination, all of which, again, distract us from the dark nothingness-the “true meaning”-of Advent. Nor is it easy to think of Advent as a season of darkness, as we should, when our houses, neighborhoods, and cities are irradiated with bright, colorful, and festive strings of lights. It is difficult to think of the weeks of Advent as “empty,” busy as they are with shopping, pageants, parties, caroling, decorating and other rituals of the “holiday season.” But these are all distractions from the vacuum that Advent is supposed to represent. (Photo by Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Macy’s Inc.) Nutcracker, light bulb and candy cane characters walk with Santa Claus’s sleigh float at the 94th Annual Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade® on Novemin New York City. But this tell us that Advent is, or at least should be, a time of emptiness-of nothing. The common refrain is that, expressing the time of waiting between the Fall of Genesis 3 and the fulfilment of the prophecy we find there in the infancy narratives of the Gospels of Ss. At least one purpose of the liturgical calendar is annually to re-present the Church’s understanding of creation, fall, and redemption. ![]() ![]() It is a staple of Advent reflection to emphasize that this is period of watching and anticipation. But unlike the pointless drifting of the characters and stories in Seinfeld, Advent is ordered toward and by a purpose that gives it meaning. Ken CraycraftAdvent differs from Seinfeld in at least one significant respect.
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