{COUPON CODE ALERT for St. Augustine Academy Press, good for their Black Friday sales! Scroll down!}
I have some Collective Memory thoughts that relate to the liturgical seasons…
Advent begins next week, and I may not be able to check back in here for a while. Not only do I want to work on gifts, I also need to finish up the draft for my book — down to 750 pages, go me.
So let me give one last try (for now) at encouragement in beginning or renewing a deep devotion to the ancient liturgical year.
The world has something to sell, and that's fine, because we certainly need to prepare for Christmas and it takes time to figure out what we need to buy (even if it's supplies for making!).
We could succumb utterly to their ways by going full Christmas already, by decorating and listening to the “holiday soundtrack” that certainly does not contain any actual religious content but I digress.
As adults we feel that we could do that. It's tempting. Many of us are tired and demoralized; and the reason Christmas endures, even in our utterly secular and pagan times, is that it offers respite and solace on a natural level (for that is the point — God made man — but don't forget the rest — that men might become divine).
Advent feels like a denial of all that. And because the Church herself has relinquished some of her ancient wisdom, even she seems to acquiesce in putting this season to us as a sort of blank, a waiting period in a dreary bus stop. Who wouldn't rather just go ahead and, well, not celebrate (Holly Jolly Christmas always seems forced, to me) but… anesthetize?
But Advent is not just four weeks of waiting; it's not a pinched denial of pleasure (as paltry as the “pleasures” of the commercial season are). And each week is not just like the others.
If we pay close attention, trying to recover what was lost, so much will be gained. The liturgical year actually offers us a chance to enter into God's will for our spiritual life at every moment and to ponder truths and realities that, if approached analytically, would fill encyclopedias of theology and never be complete. How can we reject that offer? And still claim to want to know His will and to learn more about Him?
During Advent, if we care to hear, the messages offered in the liturgy have to do with salvation history, prophecy, darkness, light, Our Lady in her splendor, the angels in their myriads, the impending Incarnation, the Second Coming… each week has its own texture and emphasis. Each week also has its own feasts to lighten the gloom. St. Nicholas, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, St. Lucy's Day — each one with its own message of the Kingdom of God. If we are jingle-belling ourselves into jolliness prematurely, we will miss it all.
But most importantly, if we recover all this along with the season's own music, traditions, and anticipation, our children will benefit from the only “curriculum” that has the power to sustain them as the world tries to steal them away.
The world also effectively deprives us of Christmas, for it folds down its festivities, such as they are, on the 25th of December. Our children will wake up on the 26th to its dryness.
We may feel safe from worldly ways (hubris, perhaps?), but our children have no defenses, other than what we give them — and make no mistake, very few ramparts are built with words and admonishments. They are built with our way of life. Past generations gladly denied themselves and held sloth at bay for the privilege of passing along this patrimony intact.
There must be a few who will stay with the old ways, keeping the “for every time there is a season” verities alive. We said we would, we like the idea in theory, but at the first striking of “It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” we surrender to the mall mentality, which may I point out is itself on its last legs! Talk about selling your birthright for a mess of pottage!
So let's enjoy Thanksgiving, and a week from this Sunday, let's begin by lighting a purple candle, starting some crafting with the children, and singing, through the season: Sleepers, Wake! Lo, How a Rose ‘Ere Blooming, Alma Redemptoris Mater chant, The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came, On Jordan's Bank the Baptist's Cry, Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus, Comfort, Comfort Now My People, and maybe only beginning on the 17th of December, O Come Emmanuel. (Here you can find a treasury of resources for music in the season of Advent. Or see if you can find an old Anglican hymnal for Advent carol completeness. My list here follows the Propers of each Sunday… )
Order a sweet Advent calendar now, either a religious one or an old-timey one (affiliate links), but not one with chocolates. How much we will enjoy our chocolates when the Christmas season begins on the 25th!
The liturgical seasons are rich, with richnesses beyond imagining. Only by living them will we begin to uncover these treasures! And our children will accompany us — truly, the consolation of their wonder, of the light in their eyes, will give us more heart than any blandishment the world has to offer.
The giveaway of My Book of the Church's Year is now closed. If you won, an email will be wending its way to you — please be sure that LMLDBlog at gmail dot com is not going into your spam file! (Confidential to Mary Ann V: check your spam file for a message about the previous giveaway.)
For everyone else, I am delighted to offer you, courtesy of St. Augustine Academy Press, a code for 15% off the book and everything on their site, good through the Black Friday sales! So go scoop up all the treasures! The code is LMLD15.
bits & pieces
- Last week I linked to an excellent interview with Bishop Schneider, in which he encourages families to recover the home as the domestic church. This week they have an interview with me on how The Little Oratory (affiliate link) can help put his advice into practice.
- Our dear friend Paul Jernberg (whom you've read about here over the years) has started a blog on which he will offer the fruits of his vast experience in sacred music for the purpose of recovering beauty in worship. He is looking for your thoughts!
- I highly recommend that everyone watch this speech by a priest on the subject of morality and conscience in decision-making, specifically as they relate to vaccines derived from aborted fetal tissue.
- A thoughtful blog post about what the author, Niall Gooch, calls “the bourgeois virtues.” Almost like the Four Cardinal virtues…
from the archives
- If you don't have one stashed away from last year (I do — it's in my freezer as we speak!), now is the time to get started on your Plum Pudding, or “fire pie” as my granddaughter called it yesterday. Here is a tutorial from moi: Plum Pudding
- Archives and liturgical living: Make your crown cake for tomorrow's feast of Christ the King (in the Ordinary Form).
- I have a ton of posts on Advent, besides the ones I linked here. Search that tag and see if something encourages you. Keep it simple, but keep it!
liturgical living
Today is the feast of St. Clement.
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Karen H says
Oh Leila Marie Lawler, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways! You sound the depth and breadth and height of our faith, bringing ideal grace to the level of every day’s most quiet need, by sun and candlelight. So many of us love you freely, as men and women strive for right through this dark age.
(With apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
Angelique says
Ooo thanks for the coupon code, I love that publisher!
That was a great article on the bourgeois virtues. It rminds me of something I read a while back (it might have been in an article by Anthony Esolen, but I don’t remember) but the writer said if you want social justice the most important virtue you must cultivate is the virtue of chastity because it protects the family which is the building block of society. It makes me really mad when people say we overemphasize chastity and they pooh pooh the bourgeois virtues. It’s cruel to the working class and the poor who can’t buy off the consequences of their actions. For a healthy young person, there’s no faster ticket into poverty than sleeping around and drinking or doing drugs and being lazy. It’s happened to several of my relatives and it’s just tragic to see what they’ve done to themselves and their innocent children and to see the pain it causes their parents.
Mckenna says
I like your focus on small, quiet, family Advent practices that focus on liturgy. I’ve noticed a trend lately of young moms focusing on external Advent practices (crafts, decorations, kits, etc.) I’m a youngish mom, but my oldest is 12 and I’ve come to realize that small and authentic traditions are far easier to maintain and more meaningful than anything I’d find on Pinterest. But, I have to admit, I do listen to the “holiday” music station early. I’m a liturgical work in progress.
Angelique says
Oh, also, for Advent, if you haven’t checked out the Benedictines album “Advent at Ephesus” DO! Last year that’s the only music we allowed ourselves during Advent and it really lent a prayerfulness to the whole season.
Katherine Grimm Bowers says
Here’s a really good Anglican resource where they’ve assigned an Advent hymn a day: https://thehomelyhours.com/2018/11/28/advent-hymns-carols-one-per-day/ Have you seen it already?
Axon Parker says
There are still people building timber frames homes like that today! I know, because our friend built us one. It was pre-cut, marked, and then assembled on the site just like an old-fashioned barn raising. It is our hope that our great-grandkids will ponder the way the huge beams were fastened together in such a beautiful and dignified and long-lasting way.
Adele says
A couple of weeks ago the Schole sister had a podcast in which they discussed festival. For the first time ever I actually felt like I understood something better then they did. It wasn’t because I understood the idea better it was because I lived the idea. Festival it seems to me is the joyful embodiment of theological truths. I understood the idea of festival because we embody our theological truths alot in this house (thank you auntie Leila). It seems to me one of the sneakiest and most wonderful ways we pass on our faith is by festival. Even if the theological truth is forgotten or denied it is still embodied in these practices and it can be a short step back home.
Diana says
I love your posts and your link lists so much. They make my week! Thank you.
In growing up in a liberal Lutheran church, the one and only Advent song that was ever sung was “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” Pretty soon, the complete concept of Advent music was given up anyway, and we just sang Christmas songs during December. I love the idea of recovering Advent, and I want to work at that diligently in my own family.
This is really off topic – but if you ever feel an overwhelming urge to write on the topic of the Catholic faith (that is, how its distinctives vary from Protestantism), as a Protestant, I would love to read anything you have to say. You have a unique gift of putting things practically and clearly.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a beautiful beginning of Advent!
Diana
Leila says
Thank you, Diana — very kind of you!
I will certainly act on any overwhelming urge to write about the topic 🙂
In the meantime, I would say to make sure you haven’t missed my “Spirit of the Liturgy” posts — the one on the Guardini book and the one on the Ratzinger book. And also perhaps my book The Little Oratory.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Diana says
I will check those out! Thanks so much, and Happy Thanksgiving!!
Katy says
I was just wondering why wait until the 17th of December for Oh Come Oh Come Immanuel? I hadn’t heard that before.
Leila M. Lawler says
Katy, you don’t have to wait, of course, but some people do get a bit tired of it by the end of Advent. And the interesting thing is that it’s an ancient chant that corresponds to the “O Antiphons” that begin on the 17th of December — each day for the week preceding the Nativity, Vespers begins with a reference to a prophecy of the Coming of the Lord. https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=958
Singing the chant on those days, I find, helps with the rhythm of Advent — instead of four indistinguishable weeks of more or less random activity, we allow ourselves to be directed by the actual liturgical pattern — similarly with the other hymns, chosen to correspond to the emphasis of those weeks. For instance, this week we will hear of John the Baptist; thus, a hymn chosen to reflect that intensifies meditation on that aspect for everyone.
Katy says
Ah thank you so much! One of the first things my husband and I did as our own Advent tradition was to have a wreath (very much down to your influence – thank you so much!) and then as we light it before dinner every night we sing a verse (so 1 the first week, 1&2 the second and so on).