{"id":58613,"date":"2021-12-10T11:24:35","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T17:24:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=58613"},"modified":"2021-12-15T10:50:50","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T16:50:50","slug":"the-advents-of-our-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/","title":{"rendered":"The Advents of our year\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<p>It\u2019s not Advent until someone rants and raves about the commercialization of all things Christmas that have destroyed the season of Advent and\/or the problems with using perky blue in a season that could use some penance and humility before the great judgement seat of almighty God \u2013 so here it is (and no, the ancient Sarum blue of Advent is not a thing\u2026) OK, I feel better\u2026<br \/><br \/>But this is not just a reflection on those issues, cultural and ritual, but rather about the complexity of Advent as popular religiosity dis-aligns with changes in official Advent patterns, all subsumed into the ecclesial difficulty of maintaining a focus on the second coming of Christ.<br \/><br \/>Advent is complicated \u2013 we wait for what has already happened, but not until we wait for what will be fulfilled. These two comings of Christ often depend on the poetry of liturgical prayers, hymn-texts, and preaching to link them together with the daily comings of Christ into our lives, a four-week series of pivots from preparation for the second coming, to a slightly jumbled middle of fear and joy and confusion regarding exactly where we are (depending on the lectionary year), and finally the last week of preparing to re-member the first coming of Christ. (This is, of course, the majority of Western Christians, acknowledging that Eastern Christianity has a different pattern of incarnational preparation, and some in Western Christianity, have returned to the forty-day fast in preparation to Christmas).<br \/><br \/>Sometimes parishes are their own worst enemies in trying to keep Advent as Advent. The absurd need to schedule Christmas bazaars in November, to put up Christmas trees the beginning of December, doing Christmas lessons &amp; carols early (rather than the beautiful readings and music of Advent lessons &amp; carols), the fear that Christmas needs to be done before the semester ends or it will never happen (for those surrounded by university life), and more. We probably also need to explore the palpable fear of actually observing the 12 days of Christmas, rather than retail Christmas which ends on the 24th of December. This year, still in the midst of a pandemic, is the first year I have heard an authoritative ecclesial call to \u201cstretch out\u201d Christmas liturgies so where there are limits on the number of people in the building, all can attend a Christmas liturgy (just not everyone on the 24th or 25th of December).<br \/><br \/>But Advent piety and popular devotions, although a distant second to the Paschal Cycle of Lent\/Triduum\/Easter, have also taken a bit of a beating. A few examples of both minor and more substantial opportunities: for generations of Anglicans, there was a beloved association with the opening collect for the Sunday last before Advent, translated into English in the 1549 BCP from the Roman Missal: <br \/>\u201cstir up (<em>excita<\/em>), we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people, that they plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works may of thee be plenteously rewarded, through Jesus Christ our Lord.\u201d<br \/>While one hopes that wills and hearts to just action were indeed stirred up, it was also the annual reminder to begin to \u2018stir up\u2019 the Christmas pudding (which needed a month of steeping in brandy or other). In its claims to medieval roots, more links to the liturgical season were made: it was to be prepared with 13 ingredients to represent Christ and the 12 apostles, with each family member taking a turn stirring it from east to west in honour of the magi who journeyed that direction. But that Sunday is now universally Christ the King (or \u201cthe Reign of Christ\u201d) and the prayer has fallen aside for ones more in line with the feast.<br \/><br \/>The Advent wreath \u2013 not an element of Advent with an ancient history at all \u2013 had become for many a domestic ritual, a focal point for household prayers. In many parishes, however, there is an elaborate \u2018ceremony\u2019 of lighting the candles at the Sunday liturgy \u2013 overshadowing the simple domestic ritual, along with the strange adoption of names\/designations for the candles which often have little relationship to the lectionary readings of each week, or at least over-simplify the complexity of Advent&#8217;s deep structure (and to the best of my ability to source these, originate with the United Methodist Church in the US in the last 25 years).<br \/><br \/>Gaudete Sunday is another example of shifting meanings. The 3rd Sunday of Advent was the counterpart of Laetare Sunday in Lent \u2013 a break from the onerous fasting and penance of the season. With so much de-emphasis on the penitential aspects, the call from the introit (no longer used in many churches) and from the scripture readings of Zephaniah and Philippians to rejoice, as well as the shift to rose from the purple of Advent, seems at odds with a season already full of joyful music and Christmas begun. Here liturgical colours come into play again \u2013 not because the colour of vestments is of primary importance, or because blue is itself a more joyful dye lot than purple, but because of <em>why<\/em> many are adamant about its use. Andrew McGowan, drawing on J. Barrington Bates, summarizes it best: \u201cThe fictive \u201cSarum Blue\u201d mostly reflects squeamishness about the penitential tone of Advent.\u201d (from \u201cThe Art of Public Worship\u201d) To the best of my research ability, the North American phenomenon originates with US Lutherans in the 1970s (<em>The Lutheran Book of Worship-Ministers&#8217; Desk Edition,\u00a0<\/em>1978).<br \/><br \/>In the midst of Advent there are a number of joyful celebrations often associated with particular cultures: St. Nicholas, Our Lady of Guadalupe, Sankta Lucia, which add to the complexity of the season in domestic or semi-public settings, even before the longstanding novena of Christmas begins with multiple texts (such as the O Antiphons) and engaging communal rituals (such as Las Posadas). One last example of popular religiosity lost might be in the wholesale cultural shift to Christmas by at least the middle of Advent in parishes means the camaraderie of \u2018greening the church\u2019 after the last Advent liturgy is undone because of the need to have Christmas decorations up to align with Christmas pageants and concerts much earlier. In listening to many reflect on that communal event, the music, the particular foods associated with this \u2018greening\u2019, revealed this was\u00a0 clearly another cross-generational \u2018common prayer\u2019 that took place as the movement from Advent to Christmas began.<br \/><br \/>Advent has rightly been much discussed as a time of prayer, preparation, and expectant waiting, but not often as a time of popular rituals and piety aligned with the official liturgy. The pandemic has certainly contributed to the return of household prayers and rituals \u2013 how do we encourage the connections between the official liturgy and its \u2018spilling over\u2019 into devotions to continue and grow as part of the richness of such a glorious gift of time which Advent is for the church?<\/p>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Advent is complicated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":58622,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3119,91,3086],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-plaza-new-ws","category-liturgical-year","category-popular-piety"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Advents of our year\u2026 - 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Canon Dr. Lizette Larson-Miller is professor of liturgy and sacramental theology at Bexley Seabury Seminary in Chicago, IL, and emeritus Huron Lawson Professor of Liturgy at Huron University College (Ontario, Canada). She is also the Canon Precentor of the Anglican Diocese of Huron, and past president of Societas Liturgica and the IALC (International Anglican Liturgical Consultation). Her particular interests (manifested in her publishing) span liturgical history (especially late antiquity and early medieval liturgical developments), rites and rituals with the sick, the dying, and the dead, and contemporary sacramental theology and sacramentality. She holds two degrees in music, an MA in liturgical studies from St. John's University (Collegeville), and a PhD in liturgical studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Her most recent book was Sacramentality Renewed: Contemporary Conversations in Sacramental Theology Liturgical Press, 2016).\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/praytellblog.com\\\/index.php\\\/author\\\/llarson\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Advents of our year\u2026 - Home","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Advents of our year\u2026 - Home","og_description":"Advent is complicated.","og_url":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/","og_site_name":"Home","article_published_time":"2021-12-10T17:24:35+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-12-15T16:50:50+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2016,"height":1512,"url":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Advent-IV.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Lizette Larson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Lizette Larson","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/"},"author":{"name":"Lizette Larson","@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ccb9ae848e195717087c546dcf5f01a9"},"headline":"The Advents of our year\u2026","datePublished":"2021-12-10T17:24:35+00:00","dateModified":"2021-12-15T16:50:50+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/"},"wordCount":1146,"commentCount":7,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Advent-IV.jpeg","articleSection":["4_THE PLAZA","Liturgical year","Popular Piety"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/","url":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/","name":"The Advents of our year\u2026 - Home","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Advent-IV.jpeg","datePublished":"2021-12-10T17:24:35+00:00","dateModified":"2021-12-15T16:50:50+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Advent-IV.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Advent-IV.jpeg","width":2016,"height":1512},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/12\/10\/the-advents-of-our-year\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Advents of our year\u2026"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/","name":"Home","description":"Worship, Wit &amp; 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Canon Dr. Lizette Larson-Miller is professor of liturgy and sacramental theology at Bexley Seabury Seminary in Chicago, IL, and emeritus Huron Lawson Professor of Liturgy at Huron University College (Ontario, Canada). She is also the Canon Precentor of the Anglican Diocese of Huron, and past president of Societas Liturgica and the IALC (International Anglican Liturgical Consultation). Her particular interests (manifested in her publishing) span liturgical history (especially late antiquity and early medieval liturgical developments), rites and rituals with the sick, the dying, and the dead, and contemporary sacramental theology and sacramentality. She holds two degrees in music, an MA in liturgical studies from St. John's University (Collegeville), and a PhD in liturgical studies from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. 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