Advent: What dose it mean

Advent, as we know it today, is a creation of the Western churches that looked to Rome as their leader. There were two main streams flowing into it. The first came out of France, during the fourth century AD, probably from Celtic monks. A period of about six weeks before Christ's Mass was used as a penitential and devotional period, a lesser Lent. The second stream came from Rome, where there was a practice of having a three-to-six week fast during which they had to come to church regularly. This was a fast before the feast of Christmas time.
The current form of Advent crystallized under Pope Gregory I, who set the current four-week length, and wrote liturgical materials for use in Advent. By the 10th century, the Celtic 'get ready' prayers and practices had been fully brought into the Roman form. Later on, the church adopted a system of liturgical colors, and Advent received a purple color not unlike Lent's. The 20th century brought a rediscovery of joy in Advent preparations. This was signaled among Protestants by using the color blue (with or without a touch of red in it). Some highly-Catholic areas hold special services on the nine days before Christmas (starting Dec. 16), as a worship novena.
Advent has fallen on hard times. For most people, it's become a time to get ready for whatever you're doing with family and friends on Christmas, and not a time to get ready for the Christ child. The bigger Christmas became, the more it swallowed up Advent. In fact, whatever Christmas-y thing we think of as being done before Christmas Day is actually done in Advent. In the US, everything after Thanksgiving is now seen as a part of Christmas. The main problem is not that Christmas intrudes on Advent. The real problem is that people no longer keep their Christmas focus on Christ, and then the Christ-less Christmas saps Christ from Advent. Practicing Advent as a religious season may help recover Christmas, but it can't do it by itself. If you don't look to Jesus every day in every season, you'll lose Advent, Christmas, Lent, and even Easter. It'll be a tiring rush, not a loving celebration, and it'll be about family or money or image and not our loving Maker. There are even some who openly advocate letting the world have its Christmas, and then Christians can do their own separate thing on Epiphany. (That would bring them nearly in synch with the old-calendar Orthodox.) But that, of course, chucks Advent as well as Christmas. Christmas is a day of joy, and much of what the non-Christian culture brings to the mix is joyous and fits well in a Christian context. Each Christian has as much right as anyone else to put their stamp on the public culture -- that's an important matter of freedom, and it needs to be exercised or it too will be lost.

When will we realize Christianity is under attack

By Michael Coren, www.mi­chaelcoren.com This artical was published in The Catholic Register November 21, 2010
The recent massacre of more than 52 Iraqi Catholics inside their church by Islamic terrorists is best described as the work of some crazed, gruesome optician. Because while Christians in Islamic states have suffered for decades, now much of the world, including and sometimes particu­larly the Christian world, seemed blind to what was going on. It took this latest atrocity to clear the vision of many who prefer political myopia.
Let's be clear why these innocent men, women and children were slaughtered while at prayer in what all civilized people know to be a sanctuary. Militant Muslims at best grudgingly tolerate Chris­tianity and often see it as a foreign, Western, heretical cancer that has to be removed- from the body of Islam. In Iraq there has also been a determined attempt to provoke Christians into joining the virtual civil war between Sunni, Shiite and the rest. So far and to their great credit Christians have not retali­ated.
What they have done, and what Christians have done throughout the Middle East, is leave. Resulting in the evaporation of an historic community that pre-dates Islam and has worshipped as followers of Christ while those who knew Him personally were still alive. One of the horrible ironies of the Iraqi satiation is that under Saddam Hussein Christians were not singled out for persecution and even enjoyed religious tolera­tion in what was - contrary to what some would have you believe - a secular state where religious fundamentalism was not only controlled but vehemently rejected.
Syria has a similar approach and the thriving Christian community, around 10 per cent of the popu­1ation, is part of the fabric of the country. The same applies to a large extent in Jordan. In Egypt, however, there is widespread perse­cution where Christians face daily discrimination and are frequent­ly targeted for violence, forced conversion and even murder ­sometimes with government in­difference and even police partici­pation in the sectarian violence. In Saudi Arabia it is effectively illegal to even be a Christian.
Palestine is more complex. Christians and Muslims co-exist­ed in the area and continued to do so long after Israel was created in 1948. Christians left more often than Muslims because they tended to be more educated, were less attached to the notion of "the land" and had more connections in and familiarity with the West.
Today there are still numerous parts of the West Bank where Pal­estinian Christians live equal and full lives but, tragically, Islamic fundamentalism here and es­pecially in Gaza has created a whole sea of problems and many Christians would rather swim to a foreign shore than drown at home. Supporters of Israel will argue that the Christian exodus from towns such as Bethlehem is all the fault of Islam, enemies of the Jewish state will tell you it's about Israeli aggression. Truth is it's a combina­tion of both.
Outside of the Arab world the situation also varies. Pakistan has become a living hell for Christians, with this small and often besieged community blamed for every­thing from political problems to natural disasters. Christians have been beaten to death for merely
praying and blasphemy laws are used to arrest and torture them. In Indonesia there is far more civility but Muslim extremist groups have been responsible for the murder of Christians, including the beheading of young girls on their way to school. In Iran Christians face regular persecution, in sub ­Saharan Africa an increasingly fanatical Islam and a flow of Saudi money and Jihadist propaganda had led to internecine strife and downright pogroms. Then we have Europe.
There is increasing evidence that in Muslim-dominated areas of France, Sweden, Britain, Holland, Germany and Denmark Christians are insulted, threatened, spat at and told that they have to leave. Not the stuff of churches being destroyed and worshippers killed but a tre­mendously worrying sign of the shape of things to come. Unless, that is, we are very careful indeed and believe factual reporting rather than Little Mosque on the Prairie.
The future? It won't be the culture war neo-con warriors would have us fight but must be a time for brutal honesty. Not because we are anti-Muslim or want conflict but because Christians have a right to live and worship wherever they want. A desire that is only extreme to an extremist.
(Writer, broadcaster, speaker, Michael Coren can be reached at www.mi­chaelcoren.com.)