{"id":51725,"date":"2023-12-05T13:01:13","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T20:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catholicliberaleducation.org\/?p=51725"},"modified":"2023-12-07T07:53:17","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T14:53:17","slug":"sanctity-of-the-season-on-advent-and-imitation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catholicliberaleducation.org\/2023\/12\/05\/sanctity-of-the-season-on-advent-and-imitation\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanctity of the Season: On Advent and Imitation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“We don\u2019t want to be so familiar with Christmas that it becomes foreign. The fulcrum of all of history rests on this singular event when God, who has no beginning or end, began. “
\u2014Noelle Mering, Theology of Home: Finding the Eternal in the Everyday<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

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For centuries, Christians have looked forward to Christ\u2019s promise to come again. This hopeful stance of the Church in anticipation of meeting her bridegroom has its greatest expression during Advent when we not only celebrate the anniversary of Christ\u2019s birth, but prepare our own hearts and minds for His glorious second coming.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet, with the annual circus-like display of material goods in storefronts and online, the call to make ready our own hearts and minds becomes ever more challenging and outside the normal routine. As teachers, we have the beautiful opportunity to do things a little differently during Advent. We have the time and space to bring the discipline of Advent into the classroom, punctuating the preparation of our own souls, and those of our students and families. We look to the<\/span> liturgy of Adven<\/span><\/i>t as our guide.<\/span><\/p>\n

Liturgy calls us to duty, to action, to practice, to prayer. Liturgies are also communal. The Catechism calls us during Advent to participate in this special way,\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When the Church celebrates the<\/span> liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating the precursor’s birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to his desire: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (CCC 524)<\/span><\/p>\n

Did you catch that? The Church<\/span> makes present<\/span><\/i> this ancient expectancy of the Messiah! Making a truth present in oneself or in the world is an act of humble embodiment. Analogously, this is precisely what we mean when we speak of <\/span>Imitation<\/span><\/i>. And through imitation, we can fully enter into the graces of the Advent season, uniting ourselves with the desire of the whole Church.<\/span><\/p>\n

A quick recap: Imitation is one of the <\/span>Seven Foundations of Pedagogy<\/strong><\/span>,<\/span><\/a> which rests on the fact that truth is knowable; in fact, Truth came to us as a Person, and is coming again!\u00a0 It is in His image and likeness we are made. To be an \u201cimage\u201d of something is to imitate it. We recognize that the first step of knowing and learning is this step of attentive imitation. Imitation, then, is not mere copying, but <\/span>embodying<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some classroom practices that encourage imitation and the embodiment of the Advent anticipation of Christ\u2019s birth and second coming are the following:<\/span><\/p>\n