Purple versus blue, Christmas songs everywhere by Halloween, Black Friday, the imposition of urgency in consuming\u2026the usual rush around Advent \u2013 we all live immersed in some of it every year around the end of November.<\/p>\n
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In the US, Thanksgiving (particularly the Thanksgiving triduum of Thursday, Black Friday, and football) overshadows the beginnings of Advent, and the over-anticipation of a Hallmark civil-religion Christmas often obscures the rest of it. But the church in other countries have their challenges too, from the wholesale adoption of Black Friday (or the newish \u2018Black Week\u2019) to the Canadian obsession with Christmas bazaars in parishes beginning in early November (which means that the Christmas decorations have to go up in mid-November to get people in the festive buying mode!) Poor Advent, lost again\u2026 This is, thank goodness, not the scenario for all<\/em> Christians \u2013 there are households and communities and parishes where visual and aural quietness is maintained, the comings of Christ (on the final day, in our daily lives, and the commemoration of Christ\u2019s first coming) are balanced, and Christmas begins when Christmas begins.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It\u2019s always interesting to see liturgy anew as an ecumenical outsider. I spent the first half of Advent in Sweden, attending Church of Sweden liturgies between conferences and visiting. After the first weekday mass, I had to go back to Frank Senn\u2019s article on the 1986 changes to the liturgy (Svenskt Gudstj\u00e4nstliv <\/em>2014) to see if I had actually heard things correctly \u2013 I had\u2026 But as the end of ordinal time turned to Advent, I was struck by several things \u2013 some in the liturgy itself, and some outside the walls of the church.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The first was the recurring identification of Advent with a text that many of us identify with the sanctus <\/em>of the eucharistic prayer and with Palm Sunday. \u201cHosanna to the Son of David, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, hosanna!\u201d Inserted at several points in the liturgy in different musical settings, the \u2018arrival\u2019 of the familiar Vogler musical setting in the liturgy lit up the singing of the congregation by many decibels! (and the liturgies I attended, mostly at cathedrals, were packed) What an interesting theology to link together the various comings of Christ that are historically commemorated in Advent (but often overshadowed by the birth of Christ) with the image of \u201cblessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.\u201d It fits for the multiple emphases of Advent, it maintains a sense of dynamism, and it anticipates all the comings of Christ with joy.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The second liturgical element was the resistance to \u2018advent wreath creep\u2019 in the liturgy. In spite of several official texts cautioning that the domestic wreath is really not central to the church\u2019s liturgy, in North America the wreath is increasingly made central, along with a plethora of created rituals surrounding its lighting and the \u2018meanings\u2019 of each candle (often having nothing to do with the historical move from the penitential first two Sundays to Gaudete Sunday to Annunciation Sunday). It was striking to see four rather small white candles lined up in a row and lit without comment before the liturgy, or at the pulpit before the homily. The white candles matched the vestment colour \u2013 white \u2013 a choice that I did not have a chance to explore with folks who were interested in such strange things as liturgical colours!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The popular religiosity of Advent and Christmas outside the church buildings was present in the centrality of light \u2013 candles and small brazier fires everywhere, every window with a lit star or arrangements of candles, and candles replenished from the beginning of November on graves and around cemeteries. It doesn\u2019t take much work to realize why when the sun sets about 2:30 in the afternoon. The short days of light, and the long hours of darkness made sense of the candles and fires everywhere on city streets and in small towns. As the text of the frequently sung \u201cblessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord\u201d linked Advent with Holy Week, so too did the lights against the darkness in the afternoon dusk in Advent connect to the lights of the Easter Vigil in the middle of the darkness of night. St. Jerome had it right \u2013 candles do not make much sense in broad daylight! But in the dark, particularly in unwelcome dark, the lights brough a different sense of movement through the dark to greater light, along with a solidarity in the people on the streets, frequently stopping to enjoy especially the \u201cliving\u201d flames of candles and brazier fires.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The differences in liturgy and popular religiosity in different cultures and geographies are a good thing, and an excellent reminder that unity is not uniformity. To that end, rejoice in the Lord always in this Advent season and in the joy of Christmas to come!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Purple versus blue, Christmas songs everywhere by Halloween, Black Friday, the imposition of urgency in consuming\u2026the usual rush around Advent \u2013 we all live immersed in some of it every year around the end of November. In the US, Thanksgiving (particularly the Thanksgiving triduum of Thursday, Black Friday, and football) overshadows the beginnings of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":61196,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3118,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-celebrandi-new-ws","category-ecumenism"],"yoast_head":"\n