This Season — Advent

This Season — Advent

Ad­vent is a sea­son of wait­ing, prepar­ing, ex­pect­ing. It is a time to see the dark­ness around us and even to con­front it and en­ter into it more deeply – with the spir­i­tu­al ground­ing of courage and hope we so des­per­ate­ly need. In con­trast to non-stop noise and di­vi­sion in the cul­ture around us, this is a time for us to come to­geth­er – qui­et­ing, cen­ter­ing, mak­ing ready – and watch the mys­tery unfold.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, the church has seen this as a pen­i­ten­tial sea­son, thus there are sim­i­lar­i­ties with Lent. Yet it is dif­fer­ent. In the first week, scrip­ture texts urge to “keep awake,” on high alert to our hu­man weak­ness­es and inat­ten­tive­ness – yet with re­minders of the gifts and pos­si­bil­i­ties, the promise of love break­ing in. This is a time to re­mem­ber our bap­tism, the sacra­men­tal bond hold­ing us in re­la­tion­ship with God and one an­oth­er, and these im­ages are es­pe­cial­ly vivid in the sec­ond and third weeks. Read­ings on the fi­nal two Sun­days brings the joy of an­tic­i­pa­tion, as we turn our at­ten­tion to Mary and the birth of the Christ Child. Ad­vent 4 dawns in a flash, with news of the com­ing in­car­na­tion – mys­tery in the womb, about to be re­vealed for all the world.

Our Ad­vent ob­ser­vance con­tin­ues through De­cem­ber 24, un­til dark set­tles in and we draw close to the Na­tiv­i­ty. Vis­i­ble signs in the church will be­gin sim­ply: touch­es of blue, like the win­ter sky, and a sim­ple wreath tak­ing shape in our midst. Lis­ten for the changes in the prayers we say to­geth­er, the mu­sic we sing. No­tice, as the sea­son deep­ens, the green­ing of the church, a sign of the ever­last­ing life that comes to us through Christ. As the time draws near, take part in prepar­ing and adorn­ing the church, as we make room in our hearts for Em­manuel, God made man­i­fest and dwelling with us.

Up­com­ing spe­cial wor­ship services:
• The Longest Night – De­cem­ber 21, 7:00 – 8:30 pm. (Doors open at 6:30)
• Christ­mas Eve – 7 p.m. Sun­day, De­cem­ber 24
• Christ­mas Day – please join us at the on­line ser­vice at our Cathe­dral or the Na­tion­al Cathedral
• Lessons and Car­ols – 10 a.m. De­cem­ber 31

The “Nave,” our main wor­ship area, is arranged so that we can see one an­oth­er, and this sea­son the chairs re­flect the cir­cu­lar im­age of the Ad­vent wreath, in the cen­ter of the nave. No­tice the sub­tle changes, the grow­ing light. Imag­ine the love that is grow­ing, too.

Dur­ing the gospel pro­ces­sion, the Word is brought into the gath­ered com­mu­ni­ty for procla­ma­tion, a re­minder that the Word of God is among us and that we take it in, to be fed, nour­ished, and trans­formed by it.

At the time of com­mu­nion, we gath­er around the al­tar as a sign of our uni­ty. Those who need to re­main seat­ed are ful­ly in­clud­ed and oth­ers stand, fill­ing in spaces in the cir­cle. There is room for all. Af­ter the prayers and con­se­cra­tion, the priest dis­trib­utes the bread around the cir­cle. To sig­nal your de­sire to re­ceive a bless­ing in­stead, you may cross your arms over your chest.

Christ­mas is, for us, the Feast of the Na­tiv­i­ty – which we will mark on the eve of De­cem­ber 24 – and con­tin­ues 12 days, to the Feast of the Epiphany on Jan­u­ary 6.