There are many practices and customs in the Church by which we may prepare during Advent. We have mentioned some of them in the past. Now we would like to focus on the second element of Advent – the present coming of Our Lord into our daily lives; in particular His coming in Holy Communion.
The Church encourages us to receive Holy Communion frequently. But she also insists that we must prepare ourselves to receive Our Lord and God by cultivating the proper dispositions. As Pope Pius X explains in his Instruction for receiving frequent Communion, the proper dispositions “consists in approaching the Holy Table not through habit or through vanity, or for human reasons, but in order to fulfill what God wishes; to unite oneself with Him more intimately through love, and to fight against one’s faults and failures.” If we do not prepare ourselves, but only go to Holy Communion out of habit, we will be unable to receive the gifts Christ is bringing us. All spiritual writers and saints are unanimous on this point. This is why so many people are never transformed and become holy.
“O admirable exchange!” the Church will sing at Christmas. Christ exchanged, so to speak, His Divinity for our humanity. He has taken on our human nature that we may partake in a mysterious way in His Divine Nature. This exchange also takes place at each Holy Communion. Why does the Church set aside four weeks for Advent? As Blessed Dom Marmion points out, it is “because she knows that the contemplation of this mystery contains a special and choice grace for our souls – this marvelous exchange between God and man.”
The coming of the Son of God upon earth is so great an event that God willed to prepare the way for it during many centuries. He made rites and sacrifices, figures and symbols, all converge towards Christ; He foretold Him, announced Him by mouth of prophets who succeeded one another from generation to generation.
Christ wills to distribute to every soul the grace that He merited by His Nativity.
That is why the Church, guided by the Holy Spirit, appropriates to herself, in order to place them upon our lips and with them to fill our hearts, the longings of the patriarchs, the aspirations of the just of ancient times, and the desires of the Chosen People. She will to prepare us for Christ’s coming, as if this Nativity was about to be renewed before our eyes.
See how when she commemorates the coming of her Divine Bridegroom upon earth, she displays the splendor of her solemnities, and makes her altars brilliant with lights to celebrate the Birth of the “Prince of Peace,” “the Sun of Justice” Who rises in the midst of our darkness to enlighten “every man that cometh into this world.”