This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

The First Sunday of Advent: The Holy Apostle and Evangelist Matthew

Although Advent began yesterday (well, okay, liturgically speaking, Friday evening), today was the first Sunday of the Advent season. On entering the nave, it was clear that we were in a change of seasons. Gone the green of the Pentecost season. We were now confronted with the deep blue of Advent.

Today was also the feast day of St Matthew, and so we were treated to the Gospel text in Matthew which treats of his own conversion. When all around us the world is gearing up for the pagan holiday of Consumer-mass, we were exhorted to repent. For only in repenting of our sin-sickness can we know the healing of our Savior's forgiveness.

For the last thirteen years or so, I have only known Western Advent, which is usually the first Sunday after Thanksgiving (though it varies). And it is clear that I am still stuck in a consumerist mindset when it comes to the holidays. For culturally speaking, the first great day of the Consumer-mass season is the Friday after Thanksgiving. Now I've known that Advent and Christmas are not the same, despite what our surrounding culture tells us. And for the last seven years, Anna and I have done our best to celebrate Christmas when it really occurs, begining the evening of 24 December and stretching through to 5 January. But it's hard to undo some thirty-odd years of indoctrination.

That's why this year is so markedly different. A full two weeks (this year) before the culture around us can sing its siren song of spending and getting, we are reminded that the Christian life--and the Nativity Feast--are about forgiveness of sins which cannot be bought. So we repent and fast these forty days prior to the Nativity.

But there is much more of which I am mindful this Advent.

Last night I prayed the Troparion and Kontakion of Nativity prior to saying my nightly prayer for Sofie. I made the sign of the Cross on her forehead with my thumb drenched in holy water. A year ago Sofie was conceived. A bit more than a year ago we learned of her presence: God's gift to us, his answer to the intercessions of the Theotokos for our home's unity in the Faith.

The unity in the Faith is beginning to come to fruition. It is a good, a very good, thing. I have prayed for this, as have the saints, for a few years now. Last year we were given a tangible promissory note of the answer to these prayers. Her name is Sofie. And one year later, in the wisdom and timing of our Father who loves mankind, our family is now worshipping together each week in the place where the Saints (and the saints) know our names. Where we are remembered to the Father each day, and where we remember our fellow laborers.

I have much to be thankful for this Advent season. A beautiful wife. A healthy and loving daughter. And the beginnings of the answer to many prayers.

Christ is born to us. Glorify him.