Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.34075/sb.60.4.2
The Nature of Advent according to the Congregational Prayer of the First Sunday of Advent
Domagoj Volarević
orcid.org/0000-0003-1671-1598
; Catholic Faculty of Theology, University of Split, Split, Croatia
Abstract
The Collect is one of the presiding prayers (in addition to the Prayer over the Offerings and Prayer after Communion) that are reserved for the priest in the Eucharistic celebration. As the Roman Missal aptly states, it expresses the nature of celebration. Advent is the time in the liturgical year that chronologically precedes Christmas, but also continues after the so called last weeks of the ordinary time in the liturgical year. Such a temporal position gives it the possibility of the symbolism and symbolic elements that speak and teach about Christmas, i.e. about the birth of Christ or his first arrival in the body, or more precisely according to St. John – in the flesh, but also about the second arrival of Christ in glory as well. Finally, Sunday as the basic Christian holiday gives a determined rhythm to the whole liturgical year, during Advent too. Sundays are therefore the foundation of the development of the message and theology of each liturgical cycle. Thus Collects during the Sundays of Advent express in a concise and succinct way what is being celebrated. The first Sunday of Advent and its Collect during the Eucharistic celebration are a kind of an introduction to Advent and they point to the further development and interpretation of the meaning and nature not only of that Sunday, but also, we can say, the whole Advent. Through the prism of the meaning of the basic terms in the Collect of the first Sunday of Advent and their interpretation in the context of celebration, we will shed light on some less emphasized aspects of Advent.
Keywords
Advent, Collect, believers, zeal, the Kingdom of heaven
Hrčak ID:
245749
URI
Publication date:
10.11.2020.
Visits: 1.699 *