{"id":68591,"date":"2025-11-18T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=68591"},"modified":"2025-11-17T14:11:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T20:11:14","slug":"structural-confusion-in-advent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/18\/structural-confusion-in-advent\/","title":{"rendered":"Structural Confusion\u00a0in Advent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">By Paul Inwood, November 18, 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Advent is a time when musicians can run into difficulties with their pastors. If you\u2019ve never encountered this yourself, you may think you needn\u2019t be bothered by what follows, but in fact it concerns all of us&nbsp;\u2015 because the problem lies in the structure of Advent itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Often the first&nbsp;hint&nbsp;the musician has&nbsp;of an impending difficulty&nbsp;is when the pastor unexpectedly&nbsp;forbids the use of the hymn&nbsp;<em>O&nbsp;<\/em><em>C<\/em><em>ome, O&nbsp;<\/em><em>C<\/em><em>ome, Emmanuel<\/em>&nbsp;before the 3rd Sunday of Advent. The reason for this is that the priest is working out of an older tradition&nbsp;that he will have received during his seminary training. In this tradition, the structure of Advent is in two sections:&nbsp;(1)&nbsp;up to December 16, and&nbsp;(2)&nbsp;after December 16. For many centuries the Divine Office&nbsp;used the \u201cO Antiphons\u201d (so called because each one begins with the word \u201cO\u201d)&nbsp;as the Magnificat antiphon&nbsp;in the run-up to Christmas. Traditionally these ancient antiphons, rooted in the Old Testament, were not begun until December 17, and then one was sung each day until Christmas, before and after the Magnificat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The hymn&nbsp;<em>O come, O come, Emmanuel<\/em>&nbsp;is a translation of these \u201cO\u201d antiphons (though with the antiphons in a different order from that in the Office). This is why some priests do not want to hear these words until after December 16&nbsp;\u2015&nbsp;the Church formerly did not allow them to be used before December 17, and the current Divine Office still&nbsp;continues&nbsp;with this arrangement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Table 1 shows the twofold structure of Advent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Table 1<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">STRUCTURE OF ADVENT (Weekday Lectionary and Divine Office)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><tbody><tr><td>Up to December 16<\/td><td>\u201cO\u201d Antiphons traditionally forbidden<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>December 17-24 (excluding the 4th Sunday of Advent)<\/td><td>&#8220;O&#8221; Antiphons, one each day (Divine Office&nbsp;and Weekday Gospel Acclamations, but NB:&nbsp;the sequence of antiphons is not identical)<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As you can see from Table 1, not only does the Divine Office still maintain this twofold structure of Advent, but so does the current Weekday Lectionary. Each scripture verse laid down for the Gospel Acclamations for December 17-24 also is one of the O Antiphons.&nbsp;However, once again the order of the Antiphons is not identical with that of the Magnificat antiphons in the Divine Office. (Here, we are reaping the rewards of two different working groups of the&nbsp;Consilium,&nbsp;the body&nbsp;responsible for the&nbsp;postconciliar&nbsp;revisions. One group worked on&nbsp;the Lectionary, another on&nbsp;the Office.&nbsp;Unfortunately they didn\u2019t see a need to&nbsp;communicate with each other!)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So the confusion which now exists is compounded. The Advent Weekday Gospel Acclamations do not match the sequence of antiphons in the Divine Office, and the order of verses in&nbsp;<em>O Come, O Come,&nbsp;<\/em><em>Emmanuel<\/em>&nbsp;does not match either of them. Worse still, different translations of the hymn have the stanzas in differing sequences!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Table 2 attempts to show how this looks&nbsp;in practice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Table 2<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cO\u201d ANTIPHONS ANALYSIS<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><tbody><tr><td><em>December<\/em><\/td><td><em>Divine Office<\/em><\/td><td><em>Weekday Lectionary<\/em><\/td><td><em>J.M. Neale&nbsp;<\/em><em>et al.<\/em><em>&nbsp;<\/em><em>translation<\/em><em>(19th\/20th centuries)<\/em>&nbsp;<\/td><td><em>T.A.&nbsp;Lacey&nbsp;<\/em><br><em>translation (18th century)<\/em><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>17<\/td><td>17&nbsp;O&nbsp;Wisdom<\/td><td>17<\/td><td>23&nbsp;O come, O come, Emmanuel&nbsp;<\/td><td>23 &nbsp;O come, O come, Emmanuel<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>18<\/td><td>18&nbsp;O&nbsp;Adonai<\/td><td>18<\/td><td>17 &nbsp;O come, thou Wisdom from on high&nbsp;<\/td><td>17 &nbsp;O&nbsp;come, thou&nbsp;Wisdom from on high!<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>19<\/td><td>19 &nbsp;O&nbsp;Root of Jesse<\/td><td>19<\/td><td>18 &nbsp;O come, O come, thou Lord of might&nbsp;<\/td><td>18&nbsp;&nbsp;O come, O come,&nbsp;Adonai<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>20<\/td><td>20&nbsp;O Key of David<\/td><td>23&nbsp;<em>or<\/em>&nbsp;20<\/td><td>19 &nbsp;O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free&nbsp;<\/td><td>19&nbsp;O come, thou&nbsp;Root of Jesse, draw<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>21<\/td><td>21&nbsp;O Dawn<\/td><td>20&nbsp;<em>or<\/em>&nbsp;23<\/td><td>21 &nbsp;O come, thou dayspring, come and cheer&nbsp;<\/td><td>20 &nbsp;O&nbsp;come,&nbsp;<br>thou Lord of David\u2019s Key!<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>22<\/td><td>22&nbsp;O King of the nations<\/td><td>19&nbsp;<em>or<\/em>&nbsp;22<\/td><td>20 &nbsp;O come, thou Key of David, come&nbsp;<\/td><td>21 &nbsp;O&nbsp;come, O come, thou Dayspring bright!<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>23<\/td><td>23&nbsp;O Emmanuel<\/td><td>22<\/td><td>22 &nbsp;O come, desire of nations, bind&nbsp;<\/td><td>22 &nbsp;O&nbsp;come, Desire of nations! show<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>24<\/td><td>&#8212;&#8211;<\/td><td>21<\/td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/td><td>&nbsp;<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now we come to the crux of the problem, which is that the&nbsp;<em>Sunday<\/em> Lectionary in Advent has a&nbsp;completely&nbsp;different structure, one which bears&nbsp;no relation to the structure&nbsp;used in the Divine Office nor&nbsp;the&nbsp;one in the&nbsp;Weekday Lectionary. On Sundays, which is what our pastoral musician is normally concerned&nbsp;with,&nbsp;Advent is divided not into two but into three parts. This division was first noted by John Ainslie in 1971 and incorporated into the organisation of the UK hymnbook&nbsp;<em>Praise the Lord, revised and enlarged<\/em>&nbsp;(Geoffrey Chapman, Wimbledon, 1972). The three sections of&nbsp;Advent in that book were entitled&nbsp;<em>Christ\u2019s Second Coming<\/em>,&nbsp;<em>Preparing for Christ\u2019s Coming<\/em>,&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Preparing for Christmas<\/em>. Table&nbsp;3&nbsp;uses different terminology but the meaning is the same:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Table 3<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">STRUCTURE OF ADVENT (Sunday Lectionary)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><tbody><tr><td>The Second Coming<\/td><td>1st Sunday of Advent<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>The Coming of Our Redeemer<\/td><td>2nd Sunday of Advent<br>3rd Sunday of Advent<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Pre-Christmas<\/td><td>4th Sunday of Advent<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This structure is based on an analysis of the scriptures for each day, and it is the same in all three years of the Lectionary cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What are the implications of this structure? Well, on the 1st&nbsp;Sunday the readings encourage us to think about Christ\u2019s coming again in glory at the end of time. On the 2nd&nbsp;and 3rd&nbsp;Sundays the theme is Christ the Liberator, the&nbsp;Redeemer, the&nbsp;Messiah, who comes to set his people free, bringing justice and peace. On the 4th&nbsp;Sunday, we are looking at the historical prelude to Christmas, with the narratives of the Annunciation, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 2nd&nbsp;and 3rd&nbsp;Sundays, therefore, are the optimum time to sing&nbsp;<em>O Come, O Come, Emmanuel&nbsp;<\/em><strong><em>and ransom captive Israel<\/em><\/strong>, with its&nbsp;emphasis&nbsp;on the Messiah&nbsp;who sets&nbsp;his people free (<strong><em>free&nbsp;thine&nbsp;own from Satan\u2019s tyranny<\/em><\/strong>) and prepares&nbsp;to lead them to the Kingdom (<strong><em>make straight the way that leads on high<\/em><\/strong>).&nbsp;John the Baptist appears on these Sundays as the forerunner of the Messiah.&nbsp;The hymn does have verses which tie in&nbsp;somewhat&nbsp;with the Second Coming, but the primary thrust of this hymn makes it fit most comfortably on the 2nd&nbsp;and 3rd&nbsp;Sundays, and&nbsp;not&nbsp;so well<em>&nbsp;<\/em>on the 1st&nbsp;and 4th&nbsp;Sundays. This is in contradiction to the older tradition, which would have the hymn&nbsp;only&nbsp;on the 3rd&nbsp;and 4th Sundays but not on the 1st&nbsp;and 2nd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Which should we choose?&nbsp;2nd and 3rd (Sunday&nbsp;Lectionary) or 3rd and 4th (Divine Office\/Weekday Lectionary)?&nbsp;It is my contention that it is the current Sunday Lectionary that&nbsp;people experience&nbsp;in our parishes, and&nbsp;therefore&nbsp;this must be considered as&nbsp;taking priority over&nbsp;the older tradition of the Office. Most of our parishioners do not pray the Office, and many do not attend Mass on weekdays.&nbsp;What they are nourished with is the Sunday scriptures, and the music we select is based on those scriptures and not on whatever may or may not be happening in the Office.&nbsp;Perhaps one day both the Office and the Sunday and Weekday Lectionaries will be revised to bring them into closer harmony\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All of this means that we need to take extra care when planning our music for Advent. Anyone who uses&nbsp;<em>O Come, O Come, Emmanuel<\/em>&nbsp;as a kind of signature tune on all four Sundays of Advent&nbsp;may be just as much mistaken as the priest who won\u2019t let that hymn be used at all until December 17. If we look at the readings, they will tell us what to do.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Finally, just to make life&nbsp;even&nbsp;more complicated, in&nbsp;one sense&nbsp;Advent&nbsp;actually begins before Advent! &nbsp;Some people are already very familiar with this. The theme of Christ\u2019s Second Coming can already be found in the Sundays of Ordinary Time that precede the beginning of Advent itself, and this means that we can already be \u201cpreparing the way\u201d by using hymns and songs on this theme before Advent itself starts \u2015 see Table 4. If this seems strange, Advent in the&nbsp;Ambrosian&nbsp;Rite lasts for&nbsp;six weeks, not&nbsp;four,&nbsp;and&nbsp;some&nbsp;non-Catholic denominations have different numbers of weeks&nbsp;too. There is nothing sacred about a four-week Advent, and in fact different regions of the Church have had widely differing lengths for the Advent season at different times in history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>Table 4<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">THE SECOND COMING (Sunday Lectionary)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><tbody><tr><td>&nbsp;<\/td><td>Year C (Ordinary Time) to Year A (Advent)<\/td><td>Year A (Ordinary Time) to Year B (Advent)<\/td><td>Year B(Ordinary Time) to Year C (Advent)<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>32nd Sunday<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><td>No<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>33rd Sunday<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>34th Sunday (Christ the King)<\/td><td>No<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>1st Sunday of Advent<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><td>Yes<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><em>The 2nd Reading begins this&nbsp;\u201clast times\u201d&nbsp;theme&nbsp;<\/em><br><strong><em>even earlier<\/em><\/strong><em>, on Sundays<\/em><\/td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;29, 30, 31<\/td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;30<\/td><td>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;32<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a9&nbsp;1979,&nbsp;1982, 1995, 1996, 1998, 2003, 2013, Paul Inwood<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>[This article has been revised, expanded and&nbsp;refined over the years, and also used as the basis for workshop presentations.&nbsp;In fact it started off life as a workshop at a Los&nbsp;Angeles&nbsp;Liturgy Conference in 1995, and some material is taken from an article in the St Thomas More Centre resource book&nbsp;<\/em>He Comes to Set Us Free&nbsp;<em>(1979).&nbsp;The&nbsp;string of&nbsp;copyright dates might&nbsp;pre-empt anyone tempted to comment that they have heard&nbsp;some or all of&nbsp;this before&nbsp;somewhere, or wondering if&nbsp;the author&nbsp;has stolen it from someone else!]<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PAUL INWOOD \u2014 Advent is a time when musicians can run into difficulties with their pastors. The problem lies in the structure of Advent itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":68615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[91,20,1],"tags":[464,2366,1904],"class_list":["post-68591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liturgical-year","category-music-general","category-uncategorized","tag-advent","tag-liturgical-year-2","tag-music"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Structural Confusion\u00a0in Advent - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/18\/structural-confusion-in-advent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Structural Confusion\u00a0in Advent - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"PAUL INWOOD \u2014 Advent is a time when musicians can run into difficulties with their pastors. 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