Preparation, Silence, Darkness

ADVENT

Preparation, Silence, Darkness

A Pub Theology Topic

History
Advent emerges suddenly at the Council of Tours in AD 567, instructing monks to fast every day in December until Christmas. This came to be known as St Martin’s Lent (11 November) and the Nativity Fast. The practice gradually spread from Tours. There was little consistency East or West, with Advent usually between five and six weeks long.

Themes
Advent literally means “coming to” or “arrival,” and in this time we welcome Jesus historically, individually, and eschatologically—which is to say, in His Incarnation, the Eucharist, and the Parousia. This was an apocalyptic season: Jesus has arrived, is arriving, and will arrive at last. Vatican II differentiated Advent from Lent, in that the former ought to be more hopeful than penitential.

Today
The Western Church observes Advent beginning on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, between 27 November and 3 December. Readings often focus on the Second Coming and Last Judgment. The liturgical color may be violet or blue, the latter traced to the eighth-century Church of Sweden. Advent wreaths originated with Lutherans. Advent countdown candles and “christingles” may be found throughout Europe.

Preparation
The Christmas season seems to come ever earlier in the secular imagination. It no longer waits for Thanksgiving, and is even edging out Halloween. Yet Advent must be more than merely holding off the Yuletide. Preparing for Christmas is a season in itself; Advent calendars help to make this clear. Baking, wrapping, and decorating are all legitimate Advent activities, and family affairs. We prepare our hearts and our homes for the King.

Tomorrow, I Come!
Many hymns associated with Christmas are actually Advent songs, mixed in with Endtimes hope: O Come, O Come Emmanuel, for example. This song draws from the O Antiphons (from sixth-century Italy) used at Vespers on the last seven days of Advent: O Sapientia, O Adonai, O Radix Jesse, O Clavis David, O Oriens, O Rex Gentium, O Emmanuel—together spelling out EGO CRAS.

Silence
That said, this ought not be a season of frenzy. It is of course all too easy to take on too much, to get overwhelmed, to feel burned-out with Christmas before Christmas can even begin. Ideally Advent offers opportunities for silence, for quiet, for prayer. This should be a slower, more meditative time. My Order offers a two-day retreat. Those Advent hymns mentioned above focus on mortality and our yearning for God.

Darkness
The other obvious theme of Advent is darkness, both literal and spiritual. In northern climes, the nights wax long and light grows scarce. The world is dying, in a sense. Our hymns look to the end of life, as well as to the end of the age. The time between Halloween and Christmas has been growing spookier in modern pop culture—but Advent has always been rather grim in good ol’ Northern Europe.

Saints of Light
Advent is a wonderful time in which to speak of winter saints. The grandest of them all, the ur-saint, if you will, is St Nicholas of Myra on 6 December. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, and he stands for joy and generosity amidst scarcity and cold. Sankta Lucia brings light to our darkness on 13 December. At St Thomas’ Day we butcher beasts, that we may feast in winter. Even Thorlak has a role to play.

Spirits of Night
Yet each of these saintly souls has a wicked reflection. Many are the “Bad Santa” traditions, with the most popular today being Krampus, a devil of taking. St Lucy has an evil twin, and Bloody Thomas terrorizes children throughout Germany. It’s a reminder that winter has teeth, and that we have good reason to yearn for light and warmth in a harsh, cold world. We might want to blame the Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).

Standing on Its Own
Advent has its own music, colors, holidays, and traditions. I no longer push it as a time to “hold the line,” but as a blessed season in its own right. Find an Advent devotion. Buy an Advent album. Turn those remote-controlled lights to blue before red and green. We all need time to prepare; we all need a moment of silence; and we all need to acknowledge, and thus face, the darkness in the world around us, as well as within us.

After all, Christ has come to save us from all of the above.

“The wrath of God and the love of God are two faces of the same thing. The world will be purged of its iniquity in the consuming fire of the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the Advent theme.” —Fleming Rutledge