"Bethlehem,
make ready. Ephrathah, prepare
yourself!" "Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son." The Nativity of
our Lord has not yet come: we still await this great feast. Christ is not yet born.
It is true that we
do not deny His historical birth, and we still proclaim in the Creed and in the
Hymn to the Only-Begotten that the Son of God was
made man. Yet we do not particularly
celebrate this fact, this momentous event, for we are still awaiting. "The people who wait in darkness":
this describes the Church at this time.
All creation is waiting with Her, with us, though the great event has
occurred. Despite this, we wait for the
dawning of that day: Christ is not yet born.
This time of
preparation, while it may vary in length, is present throughout the
Church. In the East it is the Nativity
Fast, and in the West it is Advent. It
is a time of waiting and of penance before that great, great feast, the
Nativity. As in Lent, the Great Fast, we
await the death and Resurrection of Christ, in this time we await His
Nativity. The Western Church recognizes
this with her liturgy, for both times, Advent and Lent, share that liturgical
color of purple, that time of dark waiting before the dawning of the glorious
light. We await that marvelous feast of
the Nativity. Christ is not yet born.
Today, so many small
or great "feasts" abound before that holy day, so many
"feasts" to celebrate "Santaclaustide." Yet once the long-awaited day of the Nativity
comes, it seems the "feasts" peter out and we are left with merely
dreary winter. Is not this a twisted
reversal of the truth? For now we are in
darkness, but then we shall be in light.
Now we fast so that then we may feast.
There is a time for everything, and now is the time for penance and
waiting and fasting, but then shall be the time for joy and celebration and
feasting. May Christmastide conquer
Santaclaustide, at least in the lives of Christians. For let us remember the fact of our
waiting. Christ is not yet born.
Though many start it
on the 15th of December, the start of the Nativity Fast, according to
tradition, is the 15th of November, giving forty days for penance and waiting,
just as in Lent. Not only the East, but
also the West, has this fast in tradition, for St. Francis of Assisi once
decreed, among his brothers, the keeping of Philip's Fast. Yet even if we do not yet fast from food,
should we not still fast from premature celebration? There is a time for fasting, and there is a
time for feasting, and now we fast: Christ is not yet born.
Let us then keep
this fast, whether in body or only soul, for a fast precedes every feast. When the Bridegroom is born, let us then keep
the feast for days and days to come. Christ
will be born: of that we can be
certain. But equally certain should we
be: Christ is not yet born.
Text ©2012 Brandon P. Otto. Licensed via CC BY-NC. Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the author.
