CATHOLIC TRADITIONS
The Wonder of the Incarnation Bishop Michael Campbell OSA with a meditation for Advent and Christmas
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hrough her liturgical seasons of Advent and Christmas the Church sets before us a rich fare of doctrinal themes and biblical passages which have the purpose of deepening our understanding and appreciation of the wonder of salvation which God has accomplished for us in Christ. By means of her liturgical cycle the Church exercises her maternal teaching role in a preeminent way, forming us spiritually and leading us year by year ever more profoundly, in the Pauline phrase, into the mystery of Christ. Blessed Columba Marmion in his spiritual writings was fond of stressing that each liturgical season has its own distinctive grace, if we but dispose ourselves to it in a spirit of devotion and breathe in its atmosphere. The four weeks of Advent seem to pass all too quickly, and can easily be overshadowed by the commercial build-up to Christmas so characteristic of current western society. Advent, with its hope and expectation of the coming of God’s Messiah, resonates with the profound longings and aspirations of the human heart. The wonderful selection of scriptural texts, particularly from the prophet Isaiah, seem to arouse and capture the believer’s desire for something more enduring and satisfying than that which our fleeting material world has to offer. Who cannot be moved by the content and mood of those great O antiphons recited or sung in the days leading up to Christmas? The Advent liturgy invites us, as it were, to transport ourselves spiritually back in time and to make our own the faith and hope of the people of Israel as they looked to Almighty God to make good his promises to Abraham and David and send a saviour from heaven.
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The exclamation of Isaiah captures perfectly such sentiments: Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness, let the earth open, that salvation may sprout forth…
(Is. 45:8). When we reflect prayerfully on the long centuries during which God’s people treasured and pondered the words of the prophets and their Scriptures, often hoping against hope,
WINTER 2017
