Discovering Our Lady of Advent
Article by Fr. Sam Morello, OCD
Greater than the Marian Month of Mayday crowning, more than the Rosary month of October, and more than the Marian Saturdays of the year, is the Great Marian Season of Advent! Just take note of further enrichment of the Marian scripture texts in the breviary that followed Vatican II in the late 1960s. Our prayer and contemplation, our liturgy and devotions, would widely follow the development of Advent through the eyes and soul of the New Eve whose ‘Yes’, in conjunction with Christ’s, opened the doors of history to Kairos.
The word Advent comes from the Latin Adventus, meaning the ‘Coming’. Naturally in a Christian context reference here is to the Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. In what senses the Lord comes is spelled out in the development of the Season. In a nutshell, Advent relives the Lord’s First Coming in History in Christmas; projects his Second Coming in Majesty at the End Time; and speaks of a contemplative Coming in Mystery to anyone at any time, to a person who has a living faith that hopes and loves.
I grew up in the ‘30s, the ‘40s, and the ‘50s of the last century. As a Catholic boy in Houston, Texas I knew Catholic popular devotions of all kinds. Rosary piety, especially in May and October, along with the cultivation of the five-first Saturdays, was very prominent among the devotions. Perhaps that was second only to the Sacred Heart devotion with its nine first-Fridays. Then too, there were countless popular novenas. But growing into young adulthood and becoming a Carmelite seminarian and the ‘50s brought me to the developing awareness of a more substantial devotion to Christ and the Blessed Virgin. This was by way of an emerging clarity on the importance of sacred scripture, liturgical prayer, and the official teaching of the church as the very foundation of the devotional life.
As a student in Rome I discovered theology. That was from 1958 to 1963 at the International College of the Discalced Carmelites. As theology became more integrated with real life, it added a new and stimulating ingredient to personal devotion. I felt the positive impact of biblical studies and systematic theology on my prayer life and future priestly ministry. Well, in that Roman environment, one evening at prayer something simple enough happened that was to prove very significant on a long-term basis.
It was probably in late November or early December of 1960 when, one evening at prayer, in the long airplane-hanger-like chapel of our Carmelite College, the Teresianum, and in the silent company of some 160 international students and professors of our Order, while kneeling at my place with bible in hand and attentive to some Christological New Testament text, that a fresh and altogether inviting notion dawned on me. The quiet awareness settled in as something of a gentle question: ‘Advent is about to start. Why not spend this Advent with Mary, seeing and appreciating the Incarnation distinctively through her eyes?’ The moment, as I reflect on it now, seemed different from a fleeting inspiration. It carried its own-staying power and energy, and it initiated a willing response to an invitation experienced as a free gift.
I took the inspiration to my student master who was also my spiritual director. After submitting the idea to him, his eyes revealed connection and identification. He then assured me that the notion was a grace and something to pursue. And so it was for that Advent and for every Advent since. Advent became the great Marian Season for me, dearer than the month of May, more special than October. Advent served as four heightened Marian weeks of the year. Then slowly in time, the continuity of the Christmas-Epiphany Season with Advent opened up and offered me a substantial and enjoyable liturgical unity with our Lady of the Liturgy that feeds me to this day.
Ordination to the priesthood arrived at the end of April in 1962. The Second Vatican Council opened in October of that same year under Pope Saint John XXIII. Our dogmatic theology from the Lowlands was already anticipating the Council’s re-orientation. In 1964 the Council published the wonderful Dogmatic Constitution on the Church with its famous Chapter VIII devoted to the role of the Blessed Virgin. It treated Mary in the double light of 1) the Mystery of Christ, and 2) the Mystery of the Church. The Council theologically “located” Mary’s identity and role in life, and in glory, totally within these two parameters.
This was the most authentic Mariology I had ever encountered. I felt ripe for a more mature formation in devotion through the employment of Conciliar
theology. As they say in ecclesiastical-academic circles, “Good theology makes for good spirituality.” Perhaps even better said, “Good theology makes for healthy spirituality!”
Not long after the Second Vatican Council concluded, what a providential confirmation I received from a wonderful commentary on the new three-year cycle of liturgical readings for Sundays and Solemnities, written by Fr. Adrian Nocent, OSB. This Benedictine liturgist wrote a four-volume commentary on the new liturgical readings for Ordinary Time and the High Liturgical Seasons. His work, entitled The Liturgical Year, covers the Advent and Christmas-Epiphany readings (p. 160) where I found the following passage that confirmed in a whole new way my earlier Marian-Advent reorientation. The author writes:
“…It does not seem out of place to contrast the great attention given to the ‘month of May’ with the almost total neglect of the Marian season of Advent. We must respect the efforts made during ‘Mary’s month,’ but we cannot allow a tradition as old as the veneration of Mary during Advent to be overshadowed or even completely unknown. Many Christians are so unaware of the presence of God’s Mother during Advent that they celebrate the Immaculate Conception [on December 8] as though it were an isolated feast, closely connected with Lourdes but unrelated to the rest of the Advent liturgy!
“There is a lot of scope here for pastoral effort. The point is not to do away with… [popular] devotions that the Church has encouraged, but rather to establish a hierarchy of values and to become conscious that a liturgical celebration such as that of Advent has a rightful priority over other forms of Marian devotion….”
To that I added a resounding “AMEN!” and a grateful “Alleluia.” And for me Advent homiletics took off on a whole different track.
To conclude these notes on the Marian character of Advent, I invite anyone interested in the subject to browse through the post-Vatican II books of the
Liturgical Hours (the Divine Office). You will find that from day one of the Advent season Mary is regularly featured and mentioned in the antiphons, readings, and prayers. For the Old Roman liturgy, too, the principle of Mary’s special place in Advent was operative. But the newer schema, drafted after the Council, makes it perfectly clear that the Church walks through all of Advent with Mary from beginning to end. So another happy confirmation of the discovery of our Lady of Advent has been in the breviary of Pope Paul VI.
The Advent Marian Spirit carries through beautifully into the Christmas and Epiphany Feasts. Mary is graced above other human beings, leading the way in our discipleship of Grace Incarnate – as Jesus of Nazareth. As Such, Mary of Advent is Mother of the Church – Mother of all disciples. In her company we Open Wide the Doors that Let in the King of Glory! With Mary we enter into the Joy of the Lord.
May Mary of Advent and our Lady of the Liturgy walk with you and me all the days of our lives. Amen.
Fr. Sam Anthony Morello, OCD, entered the novitiate at Marylake Monastery in Little Rock, AR two weeks after graduating from high school. Ordained in 1962 at the Teresianum in Rome, he has taught theology at various universities and was instrumental in opening Mount Carmel Center in Dallas in 1974 as an informal ecumenical center of Catholic spirituality.