The Light That Came Into the World

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, that period where Christians the world over begin building up their enthusiasm towards the celebration of Jesus' birthday at Christmas. It also marks the beginning of an official new year in the western Christian Church.

The name derives from the Latin word 'adventus', which means 'coming', and so during Advent we are anticipating the coming of the Lord. During Advent the Catholic Church expects that we will prepare ourselves "worthily" for Christ's coming by making our souls "fitting abodes for our Redeemer coming in Holy Communion and through grace".

 It is a period of preparation for all Christians. We are to take this time to prepare our bodies and souls for Christ's arrival.

For Catholics, this is an outstanding time to get back to the Sacrament of Penance. We should all set time aside to find out when our particular Church will be holding Penance services, and take the opportunity to cleanse ourselves of the sins that keep us from a fuller relationship with the Lord.

In some cases these sins and our inability or unwillingness to confront them are keeping us from the Church itself. Advent is the most appropriate time to set aside our egos and recognize that we are part of something bigger in the Church community.

The period of Advent last for approximately four weeks, and one of the traditions in the Catholic Church to mark the progression through this period is the Advent wreath.

A Gift From the Middle Ages

He didn't quite live to the age of 50, but in his somewhat shortened lifetime, Thomas Aquinas would prove to be the greatest of the men who came collectively to be known as the 'Scholastics'.

This succession of men included Saint Anselm, who posited that God's existence was largely provable in the very definition of Him as 'that than which nothing greater can be conceived.'

It included Peter Abelard, a teacher who gathered a list of apparent contradictions in Church teaching and the Bible. He then set his students to the task of resolving them, saying to them "By raising questions we begin to enquire, and by enquiring we attain the truth, and, as the Truth in fact said: 'Seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you.'"

It included Peter Lombard, who may have been a student of Abelard, and whose work 'Sentences' became, next to the Bible, the central textbook of theology for five hundred years, from the late 12th thru the 17th centuries. This systematic exposition of Catholic faith looked to combine reliance on Church authority with the employment of reason in order to explain theological points.

The work done in this 'Age of Scholasticism' is explored in more detail in an excellent recent book by Thomas E. Woods, Jr. called 'How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization'. Woods speaks of the Scholastics, who emerged during the period of history that we know as the 'Middle Ages', as educated men.