Advent--Happy New Year to the Church

Today is the first Sunday of Advent.  This marks the first day of the Church's liturgical year.  It is both exciting and a little terrifying.  It is a wonderful, joyful time of the year in anticipation of Christ's coming (and coming again).  However, it means that once again I am way behind the eight ball in planning for Christmas.  But, I always have a good time this time of the year because of my five kids.  They are really the joys of my life.

We mark each Sunday before Christmas with a candle.  The color purple symbolizes prayer, penance, and doing good works in the time of preparation. Pink or Rose is for Gaudette (or joyful) Sunday.  Two weeks of Advent are already complete and Christ's arrival is imminent.  The evergreen wreath is a symbol of everlasting life (the evergreen boughs) and eternity (the circle).

This week's readings:

You, Lord, are our Father,
our redeemer You are named forever.
Why do You let us wander, O Lord, from Your ways
and harden our hearts so that we fear You not?
Return for the sake of Your servants,
the tribes of Your heritage.
Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down,
with the mountains quaking before You,
while You wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for,
such as they had not heard of from of old.
No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but You
doing such deeds for those who wait for him.
Would that You might meet us doing right,
that we were mindful of You in our ways!
Behold, You are angry, and we are sinful
all of us have become like unclean people,
all our good deeds are like polluted rags,
we have all withered like leaves,
and our guilt carries us away like the wind.
There is none who calls upon Your Name,
who rouses himself to cling to You,
for You have hidden Your face from us
and have delivered us up in our guilt.
Yet, O Lord, You are our Father'
we are the clay and You the Potter:
we are all the work of Your hands.
(Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7)

Lord, make us turn to You; let us see Your face and we shall be saved.

O shepherd of Israel, hearken,
From Your throne upon the cherubim, shine forth.
Rouse Your power, and come to save us.

Lord, make us turn to You; let us see Your face and we shall be saved.

Once again, O Lord of Hosts,
look down from heaven and see;
take care of this vine,
and protect what Your right hand has planted,
the son of man whom You Yourself made strong.

Lord, make us turn to You; let us see Your face and we shall be saved.

May your help be with the man of Your right hand,
with the son of man whom You Yourself made strong.
Then we will no more withdraw from You;
give us new life, and we will call upon Your Name.

Lord, make us turn to You; let us see Your face and we shall be saved.
(Psalm 80:2-3; 15-16, 18-19)

Brothers and Sisters:
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I give thanks to my God always on Your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus, that in Him you were enriched in every way, with all discourse and all knowledge, as the testimony to Christ was confirmed among you, so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He will keep you firm to the end, irreproachable on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
God is faithful, and by Him you were called to fellowship with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
(I Corinthians 1:3-9)

Jesus said to His disciples:  "Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come.  It is like a man traveling abroad.  He leaves home and places his servants in charge, each with his own work, and orders the gatekeeper to be on the watch.

"Watch, therefore, you do not know when the lord of the house is coming, whether in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning.  May he not come suddenly and find you sleeping.  What I say to you, I say to all:  Watch!"
(Mark 13:33-37)

May the Lord find us waiting and watching.  God bless you all at Advent.

Syncretism and other nonsense.

We have a very interesting non-Catholic who has been commenting on Catholic Debate Forum accusing the Church of pagan roots. 

First, he said that the Church got its practice of eating fish on Friday from pagans who ate fish on Friday in honor of Freya.  Freya was a Scandinavian goddess that was never an influence on Christianity or its customs.  Beside the fact that the Scandinavian peoples ate fish on a regular basis, not just on Friday.  He also mentioned a couple of other gods who were supposedly honored by fish consumption.  Even if that were true, what has that to do with the Christian practice of eating fish on Fridays?  Nothing whatsoever.

The practice of the Catholic Church is to not eat meat on Fridays.  The Church observed this custom from early in its existence (its founding by Christ in the first century).  It is a custom in consideration of the poor.  The poor could rarely afford to eat meat.  European poor often ate bread, porridge, and vegetables on a regular basis.  If they were fortunate, they lived near rivers, the Mediterranean or other seas in which obtaining fish only cost time and ingenuity.

Fish became a customary alternative to meat not only because the poor usually ate fish, when they could afford it (usually much more often than they could afford meat), but fish was not considered to be meat.  Fish are cold blooded and that in itself made people think that their flesh was not the same as meat.

Another point about eating fish is that Jesus called His followers to be "fishers of men." Jesus chose Peter and Andrew, James and John to be apostles.  Both sets of brothers were fishermen by trade.  Thus, His call to be "fishers of men" was not lost on them.

And, the early church used the fish rather than the cross as a secret code that they were Christians.  The illustration above shows how the word fish in Greek can, ironically, be used as an acronym for Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior.  The early Christians saw this as an affirmation of their faith in Christ.

Colors of Mardi Gras

This silly person then tried again to link Catholicism with paganism by saying that "carnival/Mardi Gras/Fat Tuesday" was another syncretism (which he erroneously considers the custom of eating fish on Friday to be) to make it "easier to join the Church."  It is quite obvious to anyone who actually knows anything about history that Mardi Gras comes from the Church's practice to rid their houses of any luxury food items such as meat, fats, sugar, eggs, milk, etc. the day before (thus fat Tuesday which is what mardi gras means in French, by the way) Ash Wednesday.  Thus, it was called Mardi Gras in French or Fat Tuesday in English, because they would consume all these items on that day.  It was the practice of many parts of the Church until modern times to not eat these items, including meat, for the entire 40 days of Lent.  They would then have a grand celebration on Easter Sunday with any of the items they could afford from which they had abstained during Lent.

Carnival actually comes from the Latin carne vale which is roughly translated "farewell to flesh" also has its roots in the Church celebration before Lent.  It is not a pagan custom adapted to Christian practice; it is quite the opposite.  The Christian practice was adapted and customized by the cultures (such as Rome) around the Church.  In Rio, carnivale has become a huge party with drinking and costumes.  Mardi Gras in New Orleans came there by the French and Spanish Catholics who settled there (also where the cajun language came from).  These customs has been taken too far in some places  and seriously misrepresent the Church's intent before the celebration of the holy days of Lent.  The roots of the celebration, wherever it is, came from the Church, not the other way around. The accusation that these customs have their roots in paganism or that the Church is pagan comes from ignorant anti-Catholics from the 19th century on that attempted and still attempt to discredit Christ's Church.

Even if this (mardi gras or eating fish) were syncretisms to "make it easier to join the Church" what would be the harm in that?  We should make it easy for those seeking the truth to embrace and love the Lord through the Church He Himself established.  We welcome one and all--the sinner as well as the saint.  Christ said that the physician is called to heal the sick.  What better nurse to the Great Physician than His Church?

By the way, the traditional colors of Mardi Gras represent justice (purple), faith (green), and power (gold).  Very Christian indeed.