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Hi, I'm Dr. Bronwyn McShay. I'm a visiting assistant professor of history with the Augustine Institute, and in my time with you here, I will tell you some of the history of the Catholic Church's observance of the sacred season of Advent. So I'll clarify some ways in which that season and its primary liturgical form, and in terms of some customary cultural things, part of it today emerged and developed over the centuries. Before I get into all that, let's start with some basic definitions of the word Advent. In Webster's Dictionary, Advent is defined in three ways. The first is what I'll be considering with you today. That is the period beginning four Sundays before Christmas and observed by some Christians as a season of prayer and fasting. The second is, as some might put it, the reason for the season, or rather the two things. The Christian season of Advent is focused on the coming of Christ at the Incarnation and his second coming. Advent in the third sense is not capitalized and means simply without religious connotations, a coming into being or use from a certain vantage point. The history of Advent in the Catholic Church begins with that third, non Christian definition. The etymological root of Advent is the Latin word adventus, meaning an arrival or an appearance in the ancient Roman Empire around the time that Christ was born in Bethlehem. Pagan Latin speakers would use the word adventus for occasions when they believed that one of their gods, such as the Roman gods Jupiter or Diana, came to visit a temple built in his or her honor. Public festival days and special rites would then be celebrated at the same time. Pagan Romans and other Latin speakers would use the term adventus for ceremonial visits by kings and emperors to particular cities or provinces, for example, after liberating it from an enemy. These classical pagan senses of the word adventus help us understand why the first great translator of the Bible into Latin, St. Jerome, used that word when translating Greek passages from the New Testament that refer to Christ's second coming, such as Matthew 24:3. There the disciples asked Jesus, what will be the sign of your coming, I. E. Adventus, as Jerome put it, and of the end of the age. Given the connotations that the Latin word adventus already had among Latin speakers learning about Christianity, then the term would have reinforced the message that Christ was both divine and a king, the king of all creation. Now, St. Jerome lived from the years 347 to 420 AD now, as far as historians can document it, the history of Advent as a special season in the church's calendar traces to that era. The fourth century. That's also the century during which St. Augustine, our patron here at the Augustine Institute, was born and began producing some of his great writings. In his commentary on the Psalms, Augustine says, we believe in two advents of the Lord, Duos adventus, Domini, Credimus, one in the past, another in the future. But if we were to somehow go back in time and tell Augustine that we celebrate the feast of Christ's birth on December 25, and that we prepare for that feast as a church with four weeks of special readings, prayers and customs under the term of Advent, Augustine would actually nod in agreement on the first count, but also be a bit puzzled regarding the second one. This is because, on the one hand, August, the fourth century into which he was born, is the earliest century in which scholars have found evidence that what we know as Christmas was being observed generally throughout the church around the turn of the new year according to the Roman calendar. So on December 25th in many places and on January 6th in others. But on the other hand, what we call Advent and mean when we refer to the Advent season that was only just beginning to be observed in the 4th century and only in some places and in different ways, depending where you were. So Augustine wouldn't necessarily have had this immediate understanding of what you meant by Advent. So we see some of the earliest evidence of it in a place far from where Augustine and Jerome spent their time, in a remote corner of the Roman Empire that is today known as the city of Saragossa in Aragon in Spain. Local church leaders there gathered in the year 380 A.D. and declared that from the 7th of December to the feast of the Epiphany. So a period of about three weeks, no one should be permitted to absent himself from church. But there's not any clear evidence of an observance of Advent as a liturgical season in Rome, in the heart of the Church, until the following century, until the era of Pope Leo the Great, who died in 461 AD. Nevertheless, in the same early period, it was becoming increasingly common for preachers to give special exhortations to the Christian people in order to prepare for the celebration of the Lord's birth. So various sermons in this vein have come down to us from churchmen, especially from the 5th century onward. And by the medieval period, sermons specifically on Advent themes by the likes of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux were a developed tradition. Now, from the 4th century to early medieval times, Advent, as it was coming to be observed more regularly, had a strong penitential dimension similar to that of the Lenten Season. Now, evidence of Advent's early penitential character is found in St. Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, which mentions Saint Perpetuus, the Bishop of Tours in the late 5th century, who decreed that a fast three times a week should occur in his local diocese from the feast of St. Martin until Christmas. Also in the 6th century, at a place called Maison in Gaul, or what is co extensive in large part today with the country of France, church leaders declared that from the 11th of November to the Nativity Mass be offered in the way it was during Lent, and that fasting three days a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, was to be observed, especially among clergymen. Two centuries later, by the time of Charlemagne the Great King of the Franks, who died in the year 814, fasting and other penitential practices were widely encouraged, if not always observed, among the laity and clergy alike during Advent. Now, something I want to underscore here in reference to developing traditions related to Advent from the era of the early Church and well into the medieval period, is a general lack of standardization or universality with regard to particular norms, emphases and understandings. Fasting and other penitential practices were not generally becoming part of the Advent season at the same time or everywhere. Customs in this vein started earlier in France than they did in England, for example, nor were they legislated from above everywhere or according to the same terms or forcefulness. And by legislated from above, I mean through decrees by popes, bishops or local Christian kings who helped govern the Church in various ways in those days. Likewise, with respect to the basic matters of how long the season of Advent was and when it started and ended, we see variety across different places and time periods. So depending where you were in the Christian world, Advent could have as few as three or as many as six weeks. So in the 5th century, in Rome at the time of Pope Leo the Great, Advent was observed over six Sundays. And this is still the case in the Ambrosian Rite of the Church, which is still in use in Italy. But by the seventh century, during and after the time of Pope Gregory the Great, four Sundays was the Norman Rome as it is today in the modern Roman Rite. However, as late as the 13th century, the sainted French monarch Louis IX was observing Advent fasting for a full 40 days, even while most of the French people at that point were observing Advent across four weeks, as was going on in Rome. Now, with respect to Advent's particular liturgical forms, we do find early on some more top down decision making at work. Pope St. Gregory the Great, in the early seventh century, drew up special offices or prayers, chants, antiphons, and readings for the Advent season, and he legislated that they'd be employed in all the Latin rite churches. With such norms being enforced and elaborated upon by his successors, it really wasn't long before the liturgical proper of the seasons Advent, Christmastide, Lent, Easter, and so on was highly developed throughout the Christian world. Particular traditions of sung liturgical chants developed in medieval monasteries. Among them was a particularly lovely tradition whereby the O antiphons in the liturgy for the final days of Advent would sometimes be divided up among particular monks whose specific roles within their communities matched the antiphon that they were assigned to chant. So, for example, o root of Jesse would be sung by the monk who was the community's gardener. The antiphon, O key of David would be sung by the cellarer or the monk who was in charge of the cellar where food and drink was, were stored. So he usually had a key on his belt. Now, liturgical components of the season of Advent, even beyond the propers said or chanted in the Mass, became widely familiar in the medieval period to many people, many lay people, as well as to clergy and religious who prayed the divine office. And this is because books of hours or shorter versions of the Divine office for a wider public were increasingly used, along with calendars and illustrations that reinforced the passing of sacred ecclesiastical time amid the natural transition from autumn to winter. Now, the medieval period was one during which increasingly mature Advent and Christmas liturgies both gave rise to and started intermingling with cultural developments in European Christendom that are also important to how our modern Advent customs and understandings came to be. This is the case, especially with respect to a more intense focus on preparing for the joyful celebration of the birth of Christ, recalled with a closer focus on the journey of the blessed mother and St. Joseph to Bethlehem and on the birth of the infant Jesus there, as narrated in the Gospel of Luke. A less Lenten and more festive mood became more common in medieval times during Advent, so many of the fasting customs and laws earlier associated with Advent fell into disuse or neglect in many places, to the frustration of some popes and bishops. But over the course of the medieval period, something other than neglect of penitential norms was also at work, making the season less somber in tone. As one scholar observes, the incarnate God increasingly was honored and loved as a real God, as the loveliest of infants, whose birthday is the supreme type of all human birthdays, and should be kept with feasting and dance and song. Now, such increasingly was the Christmastide of popular tradition. The scholar went on, as reflected in Carol's cradle rocking and mystery plays. Now, St. Francis of Assisi in Italy famously played a role in this transformation. Francis, who lived, of course, in Assisi in Italy, where he founded the Franciscan order and the Poor Clares in the early 1200s, had a special devotion to the Feast of the Nativity and to the Christ Child. Francis is generally credited with having staged the first live reenactment of the Nativity scene in Bethlehem in a cave in Greccio in central Italy. The practice spread and eventually sculpted Nativity scenes, or creches became ever more popular, too, and used inside and outside churches as well as in people's homes. Francis emphasized to a new degree to move the hearts of his fellow Christians, Christ's birth in humble circumstances and his coming into the world not only as the King of kings, but also as our infant brother. Then friars in the tradition of Francis, notably Giacopone da Todi, who composed many songs of praise in the Italian vernacular in the 13th century, would start teaching ordinary people to sing to the baby Jesus with sort of new songs to him, calling him, for example, Dio fatto piccino, or God made a little thing, or calling him bambolino, picciolini, even Jesulino. This was in new kinds of Christmas songs that focused on the Nativity scene in Bethlehem, on the Virgin Mary's tending to her newborn in very homely, real ways, but also with angels rejoicing all around the scene. And in doing so, friars like Dattodi borrowed directly from the ordinary speech of peasants and artisans to really hit home the messages of Christmas and the ordinary speech of the people. Now, the medieval period saw the flowering of carols in many languages for Christmas time all over Europe. Now, a carol in the modern English sense may best be defined as a religious song, not so formal and solemn as a hymn used for church. So an expression of popular devotional feeling intended to be sung outside rather than within church walls. The etymology of the term carol in its French, Italian and Italian versions seems to be connected to a popular form of singing with dancing, often in rings or circles, with various pre Christian and secular roots. Now, some of the most beautiful carols that we sing today were first sung in this period, such as Lo, how arose ere blooming, which originated in Germany in the 14th century. And the German words are quite beautiful. One of these verses, for example, speaks of Mary as the pure maiden Marie de Reinemarkt, who brings us a Child foretold by the prophet Isaiah and one who makes us happy and blessed. Ausgaltes, ewge merat hatzee ein Kingeboren welches und sele macht who makes us happy and blessed. Now also part of the medieval transformation of Advent from a penitential season to something more joyful was that various developing traditions surrounding saints feast days that fell during the Advent season increasingly interrupted the penitential movement mood of the season in various places. So, most famously the feast of St Nicholas celebrated on December 6. While it had been part of the Christian calendar for a long time, since the days of the early church, it began to be celebrated with a range of festive traditions in medieval France and other places. So the modern tradition of Santa Claus in America was rooted in a much older Dutch tradition, carried over by immigrants of celebrating the feast of St. Nicholas, whom the Dutch came to know as Sinterklaas, and whom by the early modern period Dutch children were encouraged to believe visited and brought them gifts on the eve of his feast day. Other traditions developed in other countries related to St. Nicholas. Now, some bishops and church leaders, other church leaders were not always happy that these popular traditions were springing up and distracting from the older penitential emphasis during Advent. So by the era of the Protestant reformation in the 16th century, not just Protestant reformers, but also Catholic leaders such as Charles Borromeo, a saint, Saint Charles Borromeo in Milan, were concerned to see various popular customs reformed or even rooted out altogether that struck them in different ways as unfitting or as distracting from again what we would call the reason for the season. Now, Barro Mayo, as the Archbishop of Milan, in the wake of the Church's reforming Council of Trent, tried to revive the older penitential tone of Advent. So he encouraged lay people to go to confession during Advent. He also encouraged a revival of the old custom of fasting three days a week. Now, amid all this, something else may have been going on and simply people getting distracted from, from the penitential season with these popular customs. An historian named Eamon Duffy underscores that in sort of the late medieval popular piety that a lot of reformers got very nervous about, something very Christian was at work at times in popular traditions that not all reformers would admit was there or could it see. So looking at numerous sources from the eve of the Reformation in England, for example, he says, it's impossible not to be struck forcibly by the abundant evidence of the internalization among ordinary people of the religious themes and patterns of the liturgy and of liturgical time. And their devotional elaboration in lay piety. So he goes on to say that something we're familiar with today, the enormous richness of the late medieval Advent and Christmas carol tradition is evidence of how influenced by liturgical language and hymnody ordinary English people were, even while passing on hymns, excuse me, carols that in many cases were intended for convivial use. So, for example, a lot of the medieval carols had sort of Latin taglines that were either direct quotes of texts from some of the Advent offices, some of the hymns used during Mass or the Divine Office, and also during from either Advent or the Christmas season. And there was sort of a widespread lay familiarity with the liturgy to such an extent that it was kind of intermingling with the vernacular languages of the carols. Now, this was true of carols sung by ordinary people in many parts of the Christian world. And one carol that is familiar to us today is rooted in this tradition, that is Angels we have Heard on High, which started out as a French carol sung by shepherds and other laborers in southern France, beginning probably in the 1500s. Its title in French is Les Anges dans no Compagne, or the Angels in Our Countryside. And one of the verses that we still sing today, the one that starts with shepherds, why this Jubilee? And which, like all the others, ends with the lines from the Gloria from the Mass. The Gloria that is not sung during Advent but then reintroduced with joy at Christmas time, illustrates these origins and is a creative reference to the biblical shepherds around Bethlehem in Luke chapter two. Allow me to sing it to you if you would. Married sacri triomphant glory in Exchelsis day O Gloria in Exchelsea's day. Oh. Now, I note that some of the lines that I just sang in the traditional French version translate as quote, what sort of victor, what conquest merit these triumphant cries? But these words were actually watered down in our 19th century English version as what the gladsome tidings be which inspire your heavenly song. Now, since medieval times, the Advent liturgies for the Mass and for the Divine office underwent a lot of refinement and standardization. And with the spread of printed books, including missals and Liturgy of the Hours texts, more and more people than ever became familiar with the various antiphons, prayers, and so on of the Advent season and of other seasons in the Church's calendar. And this included Protestants and non Christians moved by these things, as well as Catholics. And I mention this because I came across a lovely passage from a century ago by a British author named Clement Miles he was not a Catholic, but he wrote about the offices of Advent and the traditional Roman Brevery, and I just wanted to share his words. He was moved to write, quote, whatever may be one's attitude towards Catholicism, no one sensitive to the music of words or the suggestions of poetic imagery can read the Roman Breviary without profound admiration. And he added, few parts of the Roman Breviary have more beauty than the Advent offices, where the Church has brought together the majestic imagery of the Hebrew prophets, the fervent exhortation of the apostles to prepare the minds of the faithful for the coming of Christ and for the celebration of the Nativity. And he notes, for instance, the stirring call in the traditional first vespers of the first Sunday of Advent of these words by St. Paul brethren, it is high time to awake out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed, which was followed by an ancient hymn, Creator alme ciderum, or Creator of the stars of Night, that dates all the way back to the seventh century. And some of the words translate into English as Drop down, ye heavens from above, and let the skies pour down the righteous one. Let the earth open and let her bring forth the Savior. Now, some of these beauties of the Advent offices that so moved Miles were actually modified by the Popes after he wrote this. Now, that was part of a longer story of standardization and reform of the Church's liturgies by the Popes and other leading church officials that I mentioned a few moments ago. So key moments in that history since the Council of trent in the mid 16th century include Pope Pius V's standardization in the year 1568 of of the Roman Breviary for the Divine Office in the Latin church. Then, in 1570, the same pope Pius V promulgated a Roman Missal that would be obligatory everywhere in the Latin Church, except where older liturgical rites, such as the Ambrosian Rite, had been in use for at least two centuries. Several centuries later, in 1911, Pope Pius X reformed the Roman Breviary in a major way, reducing the number of psalms to be recited, removing and revising some antiphons and adding new ones. A few decades later, in 1962, Pope John XXIII revised the Roman Missal just prior to the Second Vatican Council. And in 1963, his successor Paul VI, and the bishops gathered for that council called in the document Sacrosanctum Concilium for the further reform of the liturgies for both the Divine Office and the Mass. And famously in 1969, Paul VI's Novus Ordo Mass was promulgated, and it included, among other things, a greater variety of scriptural readings to be used during Advent and other liturgical seasons over a three year rather than one year cycle. Now, there's a lot that could be said here about how each of these actions affected the content and shape of the church's observance of Advent. But my simple point here is to underscore that centralized regulation, standardization, reform and promulgation of the prayers and rites offered during the Advent season, as during other seasons in the church calendar. While these things were present in different ways in earlier centuries, they also were increasingly a very modern phenomenon, and sort of the quantity of them and the sort of frequency of them. Now, also modern, quite differently, are some cultural traditions connected to the liturgy in some ways that sprung up among the Christian people and which are ubiquitous today. And this is true of the Advent wreath that marks the start and passing of each week of the sacred season, and which is something that had become very common among Catholics in contemporary times, often being used in, indeed inside churches and chapels as well as in homes. And homes were the original setting for Advent wreaths. Now, Advent wreaths were first generally used in German lands, and they they date especially from the 16th century, while Harking back to pagan times, too, because wreaths were traditionally symbols of victory and glory in the ancient world. Now Advent wreaths were actually primarily used by Protestant Germans, initially in their homes in Reformation Eastern Germany. But as time went on, they became more and more common among German Catholics as well, and then they spread to other countries. Now, traditionally plain beeswax candles of a yellowish color were used, and also often red candles were used in traditional Advent wreaths, and Advent wreaths with red candles remain very common in Germany. Still, the use of three purple candles and one rose candle to match the colors of liturgical vestments that are used on the Sundays of Advent. This was popularized only relatively recently in North America. Now, I'd like to end my talk as I began, with some thoughts on the Latin root word for Advent. Not my own thoughts, though, but reflections that I came across from Benedict xvi, which he offered in a homily in Rome for the first vespers of advent back on November 28, 2009. Twelve years ago, Pope Benedict pointed out there that in a biblical reading for that office that day, the APostles Paul in First Thessalonians, Chapter 5, invites us to prepare for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with God's grace keeping ourselves blameless, and that the Latin text for that verse employed the word Adventus or coming. And Pope Benedict went on in this homily quote, in the language of the ancient world, adventus could sometimes mean the coming of the divinity that emerges from concealment to manifest himself forcefully, or that was being celebrated as being present in worship. Christians use the same word, Advent to express their relationship with Jesus Christ. Jesus is the king who entered this poor province called Earth to pay everyone a visit. The essential meaning of the word Adventist was God is here. He has not withdrawn from the world. He has not deserted us. Now Pope Benedict went on further in the same homily, Advent impels us to understand time and history as a kairos, as a favorable opportunity for our salvation. When time is endowed with this meaning, and at every instant we perceive something specific and worthwhile, it is then that the joy of expectation makes the present more precious, present among us. The Lord speaks to us in many ways in Sacred Scripture, in the liturgical year, in the saints, in the events of daily life, in the whole of the creation, whose aspect changes according to whether Christ is behind it or whether he is obscured by the fog of an uncertain origin and an uncertain future. Now these words help us think, I would say, not only about Advent per se, but but also help put all the historical changes over time that I've underscored in this talk in a theological light. Now we don't celebrate Advent in all the same ways or even with exactly the same understanding that some of our great saints in past ages did, such as Augustine of Hippo, Francis of Assisi, Charles Borromeo, many others. But that in and of itself shouldn't disturb us. The Church is developing liturgical traditions, doctrines, understandings, and popular customs over many centuries and across many different places and cultures are ultimately evidence of real action in our ordinary human lives, of our incarnated God, our Christ Child, who was born, grew up, and died, and was resurrected in a particular time and place. These developments, the best ones that are consecrated by the Church, even those stemming from our failings and distractions from the reason for the season, are all marks of our real, developing relationships with him and our own particular times and places, of a relationship that has unfolded and continues to unfold as he marvelously wills for us. Uncreated, natural and finite historical human terms, as well as on divine, otherworldly and transcendent ones. Thank you. Blessings. This Advent to all of.