What Are You Waiting For?

The Church has a long history of praying and celebrating the mysteries of Christ in a Liturgical Year. From our earliest years we have experienced Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany as the initial moments of that Liturgical Year. Lent, Easter, and Pentecost have brought us into the intimate life which Christ’s death and rising bring us.

Those two major seasons move us around almost six months of our secular calendar. The remaining six months are noted as Ordinary Time, sometimes called the Sundays in Green, which is the color of the vestments and altar coverings.

Throughout our twelve month calendar, we are invited to pray and celebrate the presence of God within our community and our world. Colors are the most obvious of this liturgical cycle. Visible in our places of worship are the bluish purples of Advent, the whites of Christmas and Epiphany, some green time followed by the penitential purple of Lent which brings us to the whites of Easter and the red of Pentecost. Surrounding these major seasons are the green times, where the life of grace simply goes forward.

Seasons of Grace
Throughout the Liturgical Year and in various ways, the invitation to the community is to discover and enter more deeply into the Presence of God. The whole motion is relational. God shows himself to us and offers a relationship of faith and love. In responding to this initiative on God’s part, we have the possibility of exploring the various dimensions of that relationship. This relationship is not a private one, but rather is liturgical which is to say public. The visible and tangible words and actions of worship offer us a way to interiority, while at the same time the movements of the heart express themselves in external signs and symbols.

A handy reference in regard to these Seasons of Grace is the old catechism definition of a sacrament: an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace. The principle sacrament of the Liturgical Year is the Eucharist. It is the Eucharist which calls us together especially on the Lord’s Day, which is the essential element of the entire year. The Lord’s Day celebrated through the liturgical cycle brings us together to hear God’s Word and to gather at his Table. Within the celebration of Sunday we come to know Christ among us. It is the weekly celebration of the Lord’s death and rising. Our invitation is to enter into that life-giving mystery and to explore its depths and significance.

Advent Waiting
We can look to Advent as an example. Throughout Advent we gather to celebrate the Lord’s Day. The most obvious and visible is the purple which colors our liturgical space.

Something is different. The times are changing. With a little research one learns that the purple is a mixed metaphor for penance, which is kind of sad, and for the dark of night, which is about waiting for the dawn. To further pursue where God is urging us, we move to the cycle of Sunday readings. What are we waiting for? Or for whom do we wait?

God’s conversation with us continues his perennial and faithful discourse with his People throughout history. The history and discovery of God in salvation history becomes our current history with God. The Prophets are read with their beauty and confidence in the action of God. These readings and our response is nuanced by music and rhythm. Music allows us to leave our isolation and be joined with other believers in mind and heart. God happens once again.

Central to Advent is what is essential for each liturgical gathering. We soon come to be fed at the Lord’s Table, a central symbol of the presence of Christ among us. Just the reverencing of the altar by priest and people by kissing, bowing, and gathering around allow us to enter an ever-renewing relationship with Christ. On the altar is the bread and wine, transformed by the action of the Spirit and the prayers of the Church gathered, into the Body and Blood of Christ. Christ is present and becomes more present with the community and to each believer in the moment of communion. Our Advent waiting bears fruit. Christ is Emmanuel, “God-with-us”.

Yet we wait for more. We are sent from our assembly to search out the Kingdom of God in our world. We wait for his constant and gracious presence in every moment of our lives. And all of this points to the “fullness” of his Kingdom, when he will gather all the saints in glory.

In the 1940’s, a Belgian liturgist and priest, Pius Parsch invited the Church to pray liturgically. Liturgical prayer is to read and pray the seasonal scripture, to explore the metaphors and images of the words, to share in the symbols and gestures of worship, and to sing and to celebrate God among us. Not least of all it was to go within and wait in silence for the action of God. In this way each believer in the community and the community itself moves through the various expressions of the mystery of Christ. The Christ-mystery is to experience the very death and rising of the Lord himself. It is to die and rise in him.

The Liturgical Year provides the context of this growth. It would literally color our experience of God. It would speak and offer God’s word to his People. Through sharing at the Eucharistic Table the Lord feeds his People on the journey. What are we waiting for? Come, celebrate, and pray the Liturgical Year. We can move from grace to grace in Christ.

CDH