Lives Of The Saints: Movable Feasts

THE time of Advent cannot exactly be considered festal, nor can it be classed among the movable feasts; and yet the first day of Advent is, in another sense, movable, inasmuch as it happens always on the fourth Sunday before Christmas — which festival itself falls on different days of the week. Advent means coming, and the four weeks whereof it consists represent the four thousand years which preceded the coming of the Son of God into this world. Formerly, Advent-time was observed by fasting, abstinence, and mortification, but not in a manner so rigorous as that of Lent. Notwithstanding the alleviations which the Church has thought well to introduce in the course of time. Advent has still remained a period of recollection and prayer. The true Christian ought to take advantage thereof, and by pious yearnings entreat for the coming of the Son of God into his heart by grace, and into the world at large by the spreading of the Gospel.

Reflection.— "All the days in which I am now in warfare I await until my change come. Thou shalt call me, and I will answer Thee.