This Sunday, the first of the penitential season of Advent, Holy Church presents the same reading from Paul to the Romans both in the Novus Ordo and in the traditional form of Holy Mass.
St Thomas Aquinas (d 1274), commenting on Romans, says this passage was read during Advent in his day. For a long time now Holy Mother Church thought this passage very important to start off a new liturgical year.
In Romans 13 Paul gives an urgent moral exhortation to wake up from the darkness of night time (sinful pagan life) and, in the light of day (virtuous Christian life), prepare for battle. He uses garment images. Cast off, like nightclothes, works of darkness and put on armour for the day is nearer than ever. We are to cast aside sins, which he lists, and to clothe ourselves in Christ. “The day” is biblical imagery for the Day of Judgment, the Second Coming. It will soon be the moment of “visitation”, another way to translate the Latin adventus, which conveys also a reckoning.
