Introduction

As in past years, the daily entries for Advent are intended to maintain its spirit of vigilance and anticipation of the Lord's return at the end of history.  As such it is an attempt to "let Advent be Advent" and only then "Christmas be Christmas" — and not before.  With that end in view for the past four years the entries have been taken from the Book of Revelation accompanied by commentary from a wide selection of authors past and present.  This year's guide instead will be St. John Henry Newman, the 19th Century convert to Catholicism from the Anglicanism of his time. Cardinal Newman has recently been proclaimed a Doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIV for his writings which cover multitudinous topics ranging from the manner in which doctrine develops to the idea of a university to a defense of his own religious choices to his famed Parochial and Plain Sermons from both his Anglican and Catholic days. What follows are his four Advent sermons on the topic of the "Antichrist" — which, I dare say, until lately scarcely crossed anyone's mind despite the fact any number of candidates could have been put forward in the decades since Newman preached them. Interest in the Antichrist has seen a revival due to a prominent figure in the world of technology's obsession with finding the means to identity his predicted imminent arrival.  As an example of "apocalyptic" preaching (much in vogue these days) Newman by contrast provides a reading on the ways in which the ancient church viewed its own tumultuous times in light of Scripture and which might assist us in reading the signs of our own times.  Bear in mind, however, that Newman writes as a man of his own era with certain prejudices and means of expression that we might well find objectionable in these more religiously irenic times.  For that reason, I have here and there omitted passages which could be easily misconstrued as anti-Semitic or hostile to other religious traditions.  In the end,  I invite you to draw from these sermons a perennially valuable message for Christians who should always be "Advent people" no matter the time of year.  The format as usual follows the pattern of Art, Scripture, Commentary, Musical Selection and Collect taken from the 1998 translation of the Roman Missal by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy which, sadly, never received Roman approval.

FIRST WEEK OF ADVENT

Sermon I: The Times of Antichrist 

First Sunday of Advent

Now, brothers and sisters, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you not to be quickly shaken in your mind, and not be troubled, either by spirit, or by word, or by letter as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come. (2 Thes 2:1-2)

THE Thessalonian Christians had supposed that the coming of CHRIST was near at hand. St. Paul writes to warn them against such an expectation. Not that he discountenances their looking out for CHRIST'S coming, - the contrary; but he tells them that a certain event must come before it, and till that was arrived, the end would not be. "That Day shall not come," he says, "except there come a falling away first."

As long as the world lasts, this passage of Scripture will be full of reverent interest to Christians. It is their duty ever to be watching for the advent of their LORD, to search for the signs of it in all that happens around them; and above all to keep in mind this great and awful sign which the text speaks of. At this season of the year, then, when we turn our thoughts to the coming of CHRIST, it is not out of place to review the intimations given us in Scripture concerning His precursor: this I shall now do in several Sermons; and, in doing so, I shall follow the exclusive guidance of the ancient Fathers of the Church.

Following the Teaching of the Fathers in Interpreting Prophecy

I follow the ancient Fathers, not as thinking that on such a subject they have the weight they possess in the instance of doctrines or ordinances. When they speak of doctrines, they speak of them as being universally held. They are witnesses to the fact of those doctrines being received, not here or there, but every where. We receive those doctrines which they thus hold, not merely because they hold them, but because they bear witness that all Christians every where then held them. We take them as honest informants, but not as a sufficient authority in themselves, though they are an authority too. If they were to state these very same doctrines, but say, "These are our opinions; we deduced them from Scripture, and they are true," we might well doubt about receiving them at their hands. We might fairly say, that we had as much right to deduce from Scripture as they had; that deductions of Scripture were mere opinions; that if our deductions agreed with theirs, that would be a happy coincidence, and increase our confidence in them; but if they did not, it could not be helped-we must follow our own light. Doubtless no man has any right to impose his own deductions upon another, in matters of faith. There is an obvious obligation, indeed, upon the ignorant to submit to those who are better informed; and there is a fitness in the young submitting implicitly for a time to the teaching of their elders; but beyond this, one man's opinion is not better than another's. But this is not the state of the case as regards the primitive Fathers. They do not speak of their own private opinion; they do not say, "This is true, because we see it in Scripture" -about which there might be differences of judgments-but, "this is true, because in matter of fact it is held, and has ever been held, by all the Churches, down to our times, without interruption, ever since the Apostles:" - where the question is merely one of testimony, whether they had the means of knowing that it had been and was so held; for if it was the belief of so many and independent Churches at once, and that as if from the Apostles, doubtless it cannot but be true and Apostolic.

This, I say, is the mode in which the Fathers speak as regards doctrine; but it is otherwise when they interpret prophecy. In this matter there seems to have been no Catholic, no universal, no openly declared traditions; and when they interpret, they are for the most part giving, and profess to be giving, either their own private opinions, or uncertain traditions. This is what might have been expected; for it is not ordinarily the course of Divine Providence to interpret prophecy before the event. What the Apostles disclosed concerning the future, war, for the most part disclosed by them in private, to individuals-not committed to writing, not intended for the edifying of the body of CHRIST,- and was soon lost. Thus, in a few verses after the text, St. Paul says, "Remember ye not, that when I was yet with you, I told you these things?" and he writes by hints and allusions, not speaking out. And it shows how little care was taken to discriminate and authenticate his prophetical intimations, that the Thessalonians had taken up an opinion, that he had said-what he had not said-that the Day of CHRIST was immediately at hand.

Yet, though the Fathers do not convey to us the interpretation of prophecy with the same certainty as they convey doctrine, yet in proportion to their agreement, their personal character, and the general reception at the time, or the authority of the sources of the opinions they are stating, they are to be read with deference; for, to say the least, they are as likely to be right as commentators now; in some respects more so, because the interpretation of prophecy has become in these times a matter of controversy and party. And passion and prejudice have so interfered with soundness of judgment, that it is difficult to say who is to be trusted in it, or whether a private Christian may not be as good an expositor as those by whom the office has been assumed.

Musical Selection

How cheering is the Christian’s hope,
While toiling here below!
It buoys us up while this passing through
This wilderness of woe,
It buoys us up while this passing through
This wilderness of woe.

It points us to a land of rest,
Where saints with Christ will reign;
Where we shall meet the loved of earth,
And never part again.
Where we shall meet the loved of earth,
And never part again.

Fly, lingering moments, fly, O, fly,
Dear Savior, quickly come!
We long to see Thee as Thou art,
And reach that blissful home.
We long to see Thee as Thou art,
And reach that blissful home.

COLLECT