The month of December brings with it many emotions--the warm memories from our childhood of Christmas past, the joy for parents of watching children with their gleeful laughter on Christmas morning, and,yes, even for adults the excitement that we still feel in anticipation of this wonderful time of year. As Catholic Christians we observe this time of anticipation of our Lord's birth in the season we call Advent.

The word Advent (Latin for adventus, coming) originally described the whole mystery of the Incarnation. The conception of Jesus was an Advent, but so was His birth and what will be His final coming at the end-times. With its many emotional overtones, Advent ushers in the most popular season of the year. In the early 4th century, the feast of the Nativity on December 25 began the church year at Rome. When Advent evolved, it took this position, and since the 900's has been considered the beginning of the church year. This does not mean that Advent is the most important time of the year. The Easter cycle has always held this honor. The distinction derived from the practice of placing the liturgical texts for Advent at the beginning of hand copied books used for Mass. They had to begin somewhere; and even in our own Anglican Missals all liturgical texts for Advent are at the beginning of the book.

The beginning of Advent always falls on the Sunday nearest the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, November 30. As a preparation season, like Lent, Advent has no meaning in itself. It looks forward to the annual celebration of Jesus' birth, both the historical event itself and the saving event of the coming of God in flesh. It blends together a penitential spirit very similar to Lent, a liturgical theme of preparation for the Second and Final Coming of the Lord, the Holy Parousia, and a joyful theme of getting ready for the Bethlehem event.

The message of Advent is come back, Lord! Perhaps a more important message of Advent is our reclaiming of Christmas, which has become largely a secular and commercial celebration as is evidenced by Christmas decorations in the stores as early as October. In fact the early Church may have begun its celebration of Christmas on December 25, as a reaction to a secular holiday. In 274 AD Roman Emperor Aurelius decreed that citizens of the Empire celebrate December 25th, the winter solstice, as the Feast of the Invincible Sun. Christians in Rome, resisting this practice, may have adopted December 25th as an alternative festival, the birthday of Christ the Son of Righteousness.

More than anything, Advent is a time of hope. We know that whatever happens, God will be with us. The Son of God came to take our burdens and sin on His shoulders. This is the message of Advent all year round.

The Nativity of our Lord, or the Birthday of Christ commonly called Christmas Day is the all-embracing title in the Book of Common Prayer for the solemnity which is second in importance to Easter. Like Easter it is one of the two days in the year which has an octave, eight days during which the festival continues to be observed. Unlike Easter, the date of which varies, Christmas is fixed in the calendar and falls on the same date within the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas, a time of celebration which begins at the first evening prayer on Christmas Eve, 24 December, and included Twelfth Night, the evening preceding 6 January, the Epiphany of the Lord.

In the East, January 6th was the festival commemorating Jesus' birth and baptism. To these manifestations of His divinity were added two other revelations of Himself: to the Wise Men; and at Cana when he changed water into wine. To avoid a double celebration of the Nativity and for other reasons previously mentioned under the discussiong about Advent, December 25th was chosen in the West as the birthday of our Lord leaving January 6th as the festival of Christ's manifestation to the Three Kings, or to the gentiles'.

The Wise Men were known by a variety of names, standardized in the Middle Ages as Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar. Their gifts, which in the old dispensation had messianic significance, were also given symbolic values by the Fathers of the church, gold being the tribute to Christ's kingship, frankincense to His divinity, and myrrh the forecast of His death.

Epiphany came to be regarded as the climax and conclusion of the merrymaking associated with the traditional twelve days of Christmas.

This is a time of anticipation of the Great Lent. It is the three Sundays before Lent and are designated literally Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima, meaning the 'seventieth', 'sixtieth' and 'fiftieth' days before Easter, a harmonious succession formed by analogy with Quinquagesima and constituing an independent pre-Lent season. As these Sundays were so named in the medieval Use of Sarum, the modification of the Roman rite used in the cathedral church of Salisbury which influenced the composition of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI (1549), the titles were retained and ultimately included in the nomenclature of the Book of Common Prayer.

These three weeks are meant to be a time of reflection and piety but not an obligatory time of abstinence. It is a time of intercessions, special prayers, and Scriptural readings. The seventy days which began on Septuagesima Sunday were equated with the seventy sorrowful years which the Israelites spent in captivity by the waters of Babylon.

The Lenten Season begins after evening prayer on Shrove Tuesday. Traditionally this is the time set aside for confessing sins and being granted absolution before the long period of spiritual preparation and abstinence. Used adjectivally in this context, 'shrove' is an alternative past participle for 'shriven', form the verb 'to shrive', meaning 'to write'. In medieval England a priest would hear a confession and, in theory if not in practice, write down, or prescribe, an appropriate penance. After absolution, the person was said to have been 'shriven'.

Shrove Tuesday was the last day for preparing dishes containing eggs, milk and cooking fat or butter, foods forbidden during Lent. These ingredients were therefore used up in pancakes or similar recipes. In France the day is call mardi gras, 'Fat Tuesday'.

The word Lent comes from the Anglo-Saxon word lenten meaning the time of the lengthening days or simply spring. It applies to spiritual springtime in the Western Hemisphere. Lent as we know it now extends for forty days, excluding Sundays, beginning on Ash Wednesday and ending on Holy Saturday, the Saturday before Easter. Forty days throughout Scriptural history has symbolized a period of tribulation.

The beginnings of Lent are first mentioned in Christian writings about 100 A.D. It started as a brief period of strict fasting and prayer, observed by all, in preparation of the Paschal Feast, the length of the feast varied from Church to church. As Christians, our Lord told us to fast. He Himself fasted in the desert after His baptism for forty days. By eating simple, we may offer any excess money that we have obtained to aid in the feeding of the poor. Through fasting we feel, to a very small extent, some of the anguish that the hungry in the world must live with daily. Is not fasting then beneficial to our spiritual growth? Not by drawing attention to ourselves to show our pious nature, for that would indeed be a sin - we do not earn our way into heaven through works; but rather, by awakening us to the needs and pains of others. Christ said that when you fast do not show yourself to be fasting but dress yourselves as one not fasting. Fasting is a form of religious discipline, not of works.

Somewhere around 313 A.D. the Roman Emperor, constantine, became a convert to Christianity, declared it a legal religion and made Sunday the official day of worship and a holiday. In 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicea, the church word for Lent - Quadragesima, meaning a forty day period - first appeared and was understood as a season of six weeks, beginning on what is now the First Sunday in Lent.

By the 4th century, special observances were involved for the whole week before Easter. One of these observances was a procession with branches on what came to be called Palm Sunday. Then on that Friday they would hold a three hour service and called the day the Day of Passion also known as the Paschal Day, but eventually being called Good Friday.

In both the Western and Eastern Churches, Sundays are always feast days, since they were early set apart to be the Lord's day to celebrate redemption and the resurrection. Since they cannot be turned into fast days the Sundays during Lent are entitled Sundays in Lent. The color most used in Lent is purple to signify penitence.

The purpose of Lent is to renew and strengthen our spiritual lives. In early Christendom it was a time of preparation for those to be Baptized at the Easter Vigil. The Church places strong emphasis on the importance of a Lenten observance at the personal level.

Ash Wednesday marks the official beginning of Lent and with Good Friday, is one of the most solemn and penitential days in the Christian year. For Catholics, Ash Wednesday is a day on which we are obligated to practice some form of fasting and to attend church. The name derives from the custom of penitents putting ashes on their foreheads to signify their penitence. As a Christian practice it probably started among the Gauls, yet it ultimately harks back to Old Testament custom when ashes were used to indicate sorrow and mourning. The ashes used are usually made by burning palms from the preceding Palm Sunday.

The 5th Sunday in Lent is the Sunday of the Passion. The 6th Sunday is Palm Sunday and marks the beginning of Holy Week. Palm Sunday is designed to focus attention on the triumphal entry into Jerusalem by our Lord and of His forthcoming passion. The waving of palm branches in 1st century Palestine was a very nationalistic statement; Israeli style. It would be comparable to waving the Stars and Stripes in Colonial Boston. It was as if the people were telling their Roman occupiers, "our King has arrived, and your days of rule are numbered!" The climax of Holy Week is Good Friday, the Day of the Crucifixion. In the earliest times it was sometimes called the Paschal Day. Pascha is the Greek word for Passover; and in Jewish ritual a lamb was sacrificed and eaten to recall the Paschal Lamb whose blood delivered the Hebrews from the Lord when He smote the first born of the Egyptians at the time of the Exodus. The connection with the sacrifice of Christ was obvious to the early Christians, who called Christ the Paschal Lamb because He was sacrificed that we might escape death. The present name for the day originated in the English Church. Good Friday has always been like Ash Wednesday, a solemn day of obligation to fast.

Since the 4th century Christians have been symbolically following the Way of the Cross or the Stations of the Cross as a means of marking the observance of Good Friday and the other Fridays of Lent. There are fourteen Stations: however, some churches include a fifteenth, The Resurrection. These Stations are:

1. Jesus is condemned to death.

2. Jesus takes up His cross.

3. Jesus falls the first time.

4. Jesus meets His afflicted mother.

5. The cross is laid on Simon of Cyrene

6. Veronica wipes the face of Jeus.

7. Jesus falls a second time.

8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem.

9. Jesus falls a third time.

10. Jesus is stripped of His garments.

11. Jesus is nailed to the cross.

12. Jesus dies on the cross.

13. The body of Jesus is placed in the arms of His Mother.

14. Jesus is laid in the tomb.

Easter did not always fall on Sunday. Originally, the Christian Church used some form of the Jewish Calendar. The early Jewish Christians kept most of the Jewish Holy Days and added Christian observances, most particularly the remembrance of the Resurrection on Sunday. Most of them continued to observe the Sabbath as a day of rest and Sunday as a day of worship (Sunday was still a regular work day and they worshipped secretly, making time as their duties permitted). It was soon apparent, however, that Gentile Christians should not be expected to keep the Jewish customs, so they concentrated on the observance of the Lord's day. when in the 4th century the Emperor Constantine declared Christianity a legal religion, he also decreed Sunday as a day of rest and the official day of worship for all Christians.

The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ had taken place at the time of the Jewish Passover. Because of this, the early Christians understood Christ's work of redemption as a new Passover, fulfilling the old. For this reason, they continued the custom of celebrating the Pascha as an annual event. The only question was, on what day? To some the answer was clear. Christ's own Pascha (Passover) had found its climax on Sunday; therefore, every Christian Pascha should be celebrated on a Sunday, the Sunday after the Jewish Passover. Since Christ had in His person fulfilled the Jewish Passover, the Christian Pascha should be celebrated on the same day on which the Jews celebrated theirs; and this could fall on any day of the week. The date of Passover in the Jewish calendar is the 14th day of the month of Nisan; Christians who celebrated their Passover on this date were referred to as Quartodecimans. It was not until the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. that the disagreement was finally settled. Henceforth, Easter was always to be celebrated on a Sunday. But which Sunday?

The majority of Christians were of Gentile stock, living not by the Jewish Calendar (which is Lunar), but by the Solar Calendar introduced by Julius Caesar in 46 B.C. Called the Julian Calendar, and very much like our own, it had become the accepted calendar for the entire Western World except for the Jews. The Council of Nicea, faced with two conflicting calendars as they endeavored to settle on a date for Easter, turned to the Egyptian experts; and they by a calculation based on both the Lunar and Solar year, worked out the formulas still used: in any year, Easter will be the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, March 21. Thus Easter can fall anywhere between march 22 and April 25; for many centuries it was the same day for all of Christendom.

In 1582; however, the Julian Calendar was found to be slightly out of line. Pope Gregory VII then authorized the use of a new calendar, called the Gregorian Calendar, which corrected the discrepancies. This is the one most of the world uses today. The Eastern Church, though, still uses the Julain calendar to calculate the date of the Jewish Passover, and then Easter is the first Sunday after this date.

The Great Vigil of Easter Eve dates to a time so early that it may go back to the lifetime of the Apostles. It is really the first service of Easter Day, and is basically what remains of the old Pascha. the lighting of the Paschal Candle and the administration of Holy Baptism are ancient and traditional parts of this service.

The Paschal Candle is a large candle lit in the Sanctuary or near the Lectern, at the vigil. From it all other candles in the church are kindled. The candle is lighted at all services until it is put out on the Day of Pentecost. The size of this candle can vary widely - one in the Middle Ages was known to weigh 300 pounds! The candle represents the light of the Risen Lord among us.

Christians use a great many symbols when celebrating Easter, some originating in pagan spring rituals, many derived from the Judeo-Christian heritage. The cross, of course, once a sign of ignominy, became the universal symbol of Christ's sacrifice and victory, and thus, of Christianity.

Flowers as an expression of returning life have long been considered appropriate for Easter. The traditional Easter Lily is one of the loveliest, with its white color signifying purity and with its shape like a trumpet to announce the Good News.

Eggs are connected with Easter because they represent new life and thus the Resurrection, but the tradition of decorated eggs is older than Christianity itself. In ancient Egypt and Persia dyed and decorated eggs were exchanged as gifts to celebrate the coming of spring; in fact, the Persians believed that the earth itself hatched from a giant egg. Ancient Babylonians considered the egg a symbol of fertility, as did the Druids of Northern Europe. It is not strange, then, that the first Christians to use eggs to mark their spring festival, the Resurrection, were inhabitants of Mesopotamia, land of the Persians and the Babylonians.

During the Middle Ages, in parts of Europe, Easter Eggs were dyed red, and still are in the Orthodox Church, then neighbors cracked them together as they exchanged the Easter Greeting. Nowadays, variations of these and other traditions still survive. Easter Eggs are used at table decorations, in Easter Egg hunts or egg-rolling contest, and still sometimes as gifts.

The Easter Rabbit is probably of German origin. One story is that either a poor woman or a noblewoman hid her children's Easter Eggs in a nest in a nearby woods. When the children discovered them they saw a rabbit hopping away and so thought that the rabbit had brought the eggs.

These are some of the traditions that surround the Easter celebration

The Easter Season is the oldest in the Christian calendar; it encompasses the amazing events of Christ's Resurrection and Ascension, as well as, the coming of the Holy Ghost on the Day of Pentecost (Whitsunday). Originally, this whole period was called Pentecost, which means either a term of fifty days or the fiftieth day. The season's English name, Easter, is derived from Eostre, a Teutonic goddess of spring, who gave her name to what then corresponded to the month of April.

The whole season of Easter is a festival season. All the Sundays are part of the season and hence are called Sundays of Easter; thereby, reemphasizing the unity of the fifty day period. The color of the season is white, the festival color.

The day of the Resurrection, Easter Day, is the earliest of the three great Christian feast days. Originally, Easter Eve and Easter Day together were called the Pascha. Pascha was a celebration of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection as a whole because the early Christians saw the two as indivisible. They commemorated not so much the events themselves but the intrinsic significance of the events - Salvation and Eternal Life with God. With the passage of time; however, belief in the imminence of Christ's Second Coming faded, and the concept of the Kingdom of God as both an incomplete present reality and a sure future reality evolved. At the same time, the emphasis on the crucifixion and resurrection observances began to shift to the historical events themselves. A process aided by the evolution of the Season of Lent. By the late 4th century, Good Friday became firmly established as the memorial of the Crucifixion, thus splitting the original Pascha theme and leaving the Resurrection theme only for Easter Day.

Nonetheless, the Paschal Mystery is expressed effectively in the events of these incredible days; Christ's Crucifixion Saved us, Redeemed us, Atoned for our sins once and for all, and Reconciled us with God. Christ's Resurrection vanquished sin and death and marked the beginning of the establishment of the Kingdom of God. This is the heart of our faith and we must always remember that the latter completes the former.

The Resurrection throws the magnificent light of understanding over Christ's life and death. The Resurrection is Christ's victory over death and so accomplishes our Salvation, which was begun with the Incarnation and sealed by the Crucifixion. Without the Resurrection none of the rest, not Christmas, not the Lord's Supper (Mass), especially not the Crucifixion, not any of these would have meaning. Without the Resurrection, Jesus would have been only another deat prophet.

After His Resurrection our Lord appeared to many people in many places. In Mark's and Luke's Gospels we are told of Christ's ascension. Ascension Day marks Christ's essential transition from this world to the spiritual world.

The Day of Pentecost, or Whitsunday, the fiftieth day after Easter Day, marks the descent of the Holy Ghost in tongues of fire and rushing wind upon the Disciples as they waited in accordance with their Lord's instructions. As at the time of Passover, God delivered the Israelites from slavery and death in Egypt by means of the blood of a sacrificial lamb, so by Christ's sacrifice on the cross and His Resurrection God delivered His people from the slavery of sin and death. As at the Passover Jews celebrate taking possession of the promised land, so the Resurrection is the symbol of a Christian's entry into the promised Eternal Life of the Kingdom of God. On Pentecost, the Jews commemorate the giving of the Law to Moses, an event which united the twelve tribes of Israel and made them a nation, the chosen people of God; Christians celebrate the gift of the Holy Ghost, which united the Disciples and made them the nucleus of the Church, a New Israel, an expanded people of God. The next step in the long history of the Salvation of the world.

Services on Easter Day are always the most beautiful and splendid that can be devised. With an abundance of flowers and soaring music and the triumphant cry: Alleluia, Christ is Risen! The Lord is Risen indeed! Alleluia.

Central to the Christian faith, distinguishing it from other monotheistic traditions, is the concept of God as one divine substance which comprises three distinct and co-equal persons: Father, Son and Holy Ghost, 'three in one and one in three'. To express this mystery, a truth divinely revealed but not contrary to reason, Tertullian (c.160-c.225) used the word trinitas, the Latin form of the Greek trias: 'triad', not found in Scripture but implicit in early benedictional, baptismal and credal statements.

How to explain this mystery of the Triune God with doctrinal precision, a task which gave rise to many heresies, is illustrated by the legend related of St. Augustine of Hippo, author of the philosophical treatise On the Trinity in fifteen books. On the sea shore he saw a child with a shell trying to empty the ocean into a hole in the sand. When he remarked on the impossibility of the task, the child replied that it was no more difficult than Augustine's attempt to define the Trinity. The classic definition was given in the creed promulgated by the First General Council of Nicaea (325): "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father, who together with the Father and Son is worshipped and glorified." (The words "and the Son," were added after "from the Father" in the creed by the Western Church at the Third General Council of Toledo in 589 to deal with a local heresy and is referred to as the "filioque clause." The filioque clause has never been accepted by the Orthodox Church because it was not agreed upon at an ecumenical council. This unfortunate development ultimately played a major role in the schism of the Church between Orthodox Catholics and Western Catholics, which continues to this day.)

Devotion to the Trinity was introduced in England after the Norman Conquest in 1066. It was intensified after St. Thomas Becket, consecrated archbishop on 3 June 1162, the octave of Pentecost, in the Trinity Chapel of Canterbury Cathedral (later destroyed by fire), ordered that the Most Holy Trinity should be honored on that day throughout his province to commemorate his elevation. The rededication in 1542 of the church of the monastery of St. Augustine in Bristol as the cathedral of The Most Holy and Undivided Trinity, and foundations such as Trinity College, Cambridge show that ascription to the Holy Trinity was seen by the Reformers in England as a means of countering the excessive veneration of saints. Similar dedications of some 230 churches built in England in the nineteenth century illustrate the avoidance of saints' names by the Evangelical party in the Church of England.

Following the ancient usage of Sarum, the Book of Common Prayer numbers Sundays until Advent as 'after Trinity', as do some Lutheran Churches. Roman and Episcopalian modern calendars make Pentecost the starting-point.