Advent is a time of preparation. We prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ, and welcome his presence into our lives.
During a time of Christmas shopping, holiday parties, and family gatherings, it can be hard to find the time to prepare properly for this faith-filled season. However, the Catholic Church has a rich history of traditions to help keep our minds focused on the true meaning of the season.
In an interview with EWTN News In Depth, Father Patrick Mary Briscoe, O.P., host of the Godsplaining podcast, discussed the history of Advent and how it began in the fourth century.
“It was originally a kind of time of preparation for people that were preparing for baptism,” he said. “The feast of the epiphany was a great day in the old calendar, it used to be alighted with the feast of the baptism of the Lord.”
Since it was a time of preparation for those soon-to-be baptized, Fr. Patrick pointed out that “It had more of a feel of Lent to it.”
“There was a kind of rigor again, looking forward to the coming mysteries that were celebrated by the sacraments,” he said.
Jumping forward to the present day, the meaning of Advent is different. It now focuses on the birth of Jesus, and families place an Advent wreath in their home. The Catholic Church also uses different colors to represent the season.
“That deep purple that you see in Advent, that very rich color, is the color of repentance,” Fr. Patrick explained. “It reminds us of the sober and somber character of the season and tells us that we should be preparing not just our homes, not just our surroundings, but our souls.”
The Advent season is not one entirely characterized by somberness, however. Gaudete Sunday represents the midway point of the Advent season and is a Sunday of rejoicing. On Gaudete Sunday, which is the third Sunday of Advent, a rose colored candle is illuminated.
“Christmas and the Advent season, I think, are so different from Lent principally because they have this note of hope,” Fr. Patrick said. “Advent is a season ultimately of light and we see that in the candles of the Advent wreath.”
While many think primarily of the outward signs of Advent, this time of year is deeply rooted in the inward preparation we are called to as we draw closer to the birth of Jesus.
During the interview, Fr. Patrick recalled a homily given by Saint Bernard Clairvaux, which is read by the Church in the liturgy of the hours. In the homily, the saint describes three comings of Christ.
“Christ came once as a child in Bethlehem, and the Lord Jesus is going to come again to judge the living and the dead, so this is the second principle meaning of Advent,” he said. “But, the third coming of Christ is that Christ is coming into our hearts.”
“The spirit of Advent, then, is to be ready each Christmas to receive Christ in my life, in the here and now, in a new and deeper way,” he said.
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St. Louis, Mo., Jun 15, 2022 / 11:38 am (CNA).
An engineer at Google made headlines this week after raising concerns that Google’s artificial intelligence system, Language Model for Dialogue Applications (LaMD… […]
Children’s Hospital Colorado announced that it is halting “gender-affirming” surgeries. / Thechildrenshospital|Wikimedia|CC BY-SA 3.0
Denver, Colo., Jul 26, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Children’s Hospital Colorado will stop performing purported “gender-affirming” surgeries on patients aged 18 years and older, citing an “unprecedented” number of referrals and a need to focus on pediatric patients.
The surgeries involved “chest reconstruction,” the Denver Post reported. The procedures remove breast tissue to create a masculine appearance for women who identify as men. Staff are now referring prospective surgery patients to other hospitals.
The hospital said it has not performed such surgeries on patients under age 18, though it continues to provide puberty blockers and hormones and other services that aim to affirm the self-identified gender of some patients.
“We have been receiving unprecedented referrals for gender-affirming care, and in order to continue delivering expert multidisciplinary care to our pediatric patients and their families, we have made the difficult decision to no longer provide gender-affirming surgical procedures for adult patients 18 years of age and older,” the hospital told CNA in a statement.
Though a spokesperson for Children’s Hospital Colorado told the Denver Post last week that children’s hospitals have been “directly threatened as a result of the gender-affirming care provided in their institutions,” she later told NBC News that threats to other hospitals did not drive the decision.
The hospital’s TRUE Center for Gender Diversity still provides puberty-blocking medicines, cross-sex hormone therapy, and counseling as well as referrals to other services, according to its website.
“Using puberty blockers can avoid body changes that do not align with your identity,” the TRUE Center website says. It says hormone therapy can help produce secondary sex characteristics like voice pitch and breast development “that align with your gender identity.”
Catholic ethics rejects the removal of healthy sexual organs as a form of mutilation, according to an FAQ by the National Catholic Bioethics Center. The Catholic vision of the person as a unity of body and soul means that a person cannot change his or her sexual identity.
Purported gender-affirming drugs and procedures, especially for minors, have also drawn political scrutiny, public protest, and sometimes threats.
In November 2022, the New York Times published an article questioning the use of puberty blockers, which are often presented as a safe, reversible option. There are various protocols for using the drugs, little documentation of patient outcomes, and the drugs are not government-approved for use in gender therapies.
The drugs are prescribed as early as age 8 so that self-identified transgender patients can begin cross-sex hormones at age 12 or 13. However, puberty can help clarify self-perceived gender, and patients could be making life-altering choices prematurely. Among those who have used the drugs, bone strength analysis finds that their bone growth does not fully rebound.
There are also concerns that the drugs’ interference with hormonal development could disrupt mental growth and brain development in areas such as critical thinking, sophisticated self-reflection, social skills, and problem-solving skills.
“Our team is now working with impacted adult patients to explore referrals to the many other hospitals in the region that provide this care for adults,” the hospital said in its statement. “Children’s Hospital Colorado takes a holistic approach to ensure a patient’s mental and physical needs surrounding their gender identity and expression are met.”
An unnamed woman whose child was seeking to schedule chest reconstruction at Children’s Hospital Colorado after turning 18 this fall spoke about the changes to The Denver Post.
Before they could schedule the surgery her child’s primary care physician and a psychologist had to evaluate the child’s physical health and ability to make a decision about the procedure. Health insurers also had to agree to pay for the procedure.
She said her child has now been referred to the University of Colorado Hospital’s surgery center. She told the Denver Post the whole process has to restart, thwarting her child’s goal of finishing the surgery before leaving for college next year.
Colorado is the first state to define gender-affirming care as an essential health benefitand requires coverage of it in individual plans and small group plans, according to the website of the Division of Insurance at the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies. Colorado’s Medicaid program will streamline the process to provide people on Medicaid access to the drugs and surgeries on Aug. 30, 9 News reported.
An October 2022 Reuters report on children seeking gender care said 776 U.S. patients aged 13 to 17 with a prior gender dysphoria diagnosis underwent mastectomies from 2019 to 2021. This figure, compiled by health technology company Komodo Health Inc., was based on insurance claims data and did not include procedures paid for out of pocket. Genital surgeries were performed on another 56 patients in this time period.
The procedure is uncommon for patients under age 18, with some hospitals and gender clinics requiring patients to be adults. The surgical procedures are irreversible and have a heightened risk of complications, Reuters reported.
At least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 through 2021, Reuters said. It defined this dysphoria as the distress caused by a discrepancy between a person’s gender identity and the gender assigned to them at birth.
In the same period, at least 4,780 adolescents started on puberty blockers and at least 14,726 started hormone treatment.
Archbishop Zbigņevs Stankevičs of Riga, Latvia (left), speaking during a Catholic conference in Warsaw in May 2022 on the natural law legacy of John Paul II (right.) / Photos by Lisa Johnston and L’Osservatore Romano
Warsaw, Poland, Jun 9, 2022 / 09:17 am (CNA).
Constant cooperation and dialogue among Catholic, Lutherans, Orthodox, and other Christian denominations have been crucial to protect life and family in the Baltic nation of Latvia, Archbishop Zbigņevs Stankevičs of Riga, Latvia, said during a recent Catholic conference in Warsaw.
In his speech, Stankevičs shared his personal ecumenical experience in Latvia as an example of how the concept of natural law proposed by St. John Paul II can serve as the basis for ecumenical cooperation in defending human values.
The metropolitan archbishop, based in Latvia’s capital, is no stranger to ecumenical work and thought. In 2001, he became the first bishop consecrated in a Lutheran church since the split from Protestantism in the 1500s. The unusual move, which occurred in the church of Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral in Riga, formerly the Catholic Cathedral of St. Mary, signaled the beginning of Stankevičs’ cooperation with the Lutheran church in Latvia, a cooperation that would ultimately become a partnership in the cause of life and the family. Since 2012, the archbishop has served on the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
“I would like to present this ecumenical cooperation in three experiences in my country: the abortion debate, the civil unions discussion, and the so-called Istanbul convention,” Stankevičs began.
Entering the abortion debate
Ordained as a priest in 1996, Stankevičs struggled to find proper consultation for Catholic couples on natural family planning. It was then that he decided to create a small center that provided natural family planning under the motto “let us protect the miracle [of fertility].”
This involvement in the world of natural family planning would lead him into the heart of the abortion debate in Latvian society, and, ultimately, to the conclusion that moral discussions in the public square benefit from a basis in natural law, something emphasized in the teachings of John Paul II.
“I knew that theological arguments would not work for a secular audience, so I wanted to show that Catholic arguments are not opposed to legal, scientific, and universal arguments, but rather are in harmony with them,” Stankevičs said.
“[A] few years later our parliament introduced the discussion to legalize abortion. No one was doing anything so I decided to do something. I consulted some experts and presented a proposal that was published in the most important secular newspaper in Latvia,” the archbishop said.
Stankevičs’ article, “Why I was Lucky,” used both biological and theological arguments to defend human life. He noted that his own mother, when pregnant with him, was under pressure to get an abortion; “but she was a believer, a Catholic, so she refused the pressure.”
After the Latvian parliament legalized abortion in 2002, the different Christian confessions decided to start working together to protect the right to life and the family.
In Latvia, Catholics comprise 25% of the population, Lutherans 34.2%, and Russian Orthodox 17%, with other smaller, mostly Christian denominations making up the remainder.
“We started to work together by the initiative of a businessman in Riga, a non-believer who wanted to promote awareness about the humanity of the unborn,” the archbishop recalled.
“Bringing all Christians together in a truly ecumenical effort ended up bearing good fruits because we worked together in promoting a culture of life: From more than 7,000 abortions per year in 2002, we were able to bring it down to 2,000 by 2020,” he said.
Map of Riga, the capital of Latvia. Shutterstock
Ecumenical defense of marriage, family
Regarding the legislation on civil unions, another area where Stankevičs has rallied ecumenical groups around natural law defense of marriage, the archbishop said that he has seen the tension surrounding LGBT issues mount in Latvian society as increased pressure is brought to bear to legalize same-sex unions.
Invited to a debate on a popular Latvian television show called “One vs. One” after Pope Francis’ remark “who am I to judge?” was widely interpreted in Latvian society as approving homosexual unions, Stankevičs “had the opportunity to explain the teachings of the Catholic Church and what was the real meaning of the Holy Father’s words.”
After that episode, in dialogue with other Christian leaders, Stankevičs proposed a law aimed at reducing political tensions in the country without jeopardizing the traditional concept of the family.
The legislation proposed by the ecumenical group of Christians would have created binding regulations aimed at protecting any kind of common household; “for example, two old persons living together to help one another, or one old and one young person who decide to live together.”
“The law would benefit any household, including homosexual couples, but would not affect the concept of [the] natural family,” Stankevičs explained. “Unfortunately the media manipulated my proposal, and the Agency France Presse presented me internationally as if I was in favor of gay marriage.”
In 2020, the Constitutional Court in Latvia decided a case in favor of legalizing homosexual couples and ordered the parliament to pass legislation according to this decision.
In response, the Latvian Men’s Association started a campaign to introduce an amendment to the Latvian constitution, to clarify the concept of family. The Latvian constitution in 2005 proclaimed that marriage is only between a man and a woman, but left a legal void regarding the definition of family, which the court wanted to interpret to include homosexual unions.
The Latvian bishops’ conference supported the amendment presented by the Men’s Association, “but most importantly,” Stankevičs explained, “we put together an ecumenical statement signed by the leaders of 10 different Christian denominations supporting the idea that the family should be based on the marriage between a man and a woman. The president of the Latvian Jewish community, a good friend, also joined the statement.”
The Freedom Monument in Riga, Latvia, honors soldiers who died during the Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920). Shutterstock
According to Stankevičs, something strange happened next. “The Minister of Justice created a committee to discuss the demand of the constitutional court, and it included several Christian representatives, including three from the Catholic Church, which worked for a year.” But ignoring all the discussions and proposals, the Minister of Justice ended up sending a proposal to parliament that was a full recognition of homosexual couples as marriage.
The response was also ecumenical: Christian leaders sent a letter encouraging the parliament to ignore the government’s proposal.
According to Stankevičs, the proposal has already passed one round of votes “and it is very likely that it will be approved in a second round of votes, with the support of the New Conservative party. But we Christians continue to work together.”
Preventing gender ideology
The third field of ecumenical cooperation mentioned by Stankevičs concerned the Istanbul Convention, a European treaty which the Latvian government signed but ultimately did not ratify.
The treaty was introduced as an international legal instrument that recognizes violence against women as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women.
The convention claims to cover various forms of gender-based violence against women, but Christian communities in Latvia have criticized the heavy use of gender ideology in both the framing and the language of the document.
The word “gender,” for instance, is defined as “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men,” a definition that allows gender to be defined independent of biological sex and therefore opens the document to the question of whether it really is aimed at the protection of women.
Christian communities also question the biased nature of the committee designated to enforce the convention.
The governments of Slovakia and Bulgaria refused to ratify the convention, while Poland, Lithuania, and Croatia expressed reservations about the convention though it was ultimately ratified in those countries, a move the government of Poland is attempting to reverse.
“When we found out that the Latvian parliament was going to ratify it, I went to the parliament and presented the common Christian position,” Stankevičs explained. As a consequence of that visit, the Latvian parliament decided not to ratify the convention, Stankevičs said, crediting the appeal to the unity provided by the common Christian position argued via natural law.
“In conclusion,” the archbishop said, “I can say that in Latvia we continue to defend the true nature of life and family. But if we Catholics would act alone, we would not have the impact that we have as one Christian majority. That unity is the reason why the government takes us seriously.”
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