Advent

Advent is probably my favorite season of the year, although in most years past, I have probably treated the Advent season more as the Christmas season. The Christmas decorations went up fast and there was nothing else to wait for. Although most of the decorations went up early again this year (after Thanksgiving), I'm taking a whole new approach to the season of waiting and the season of hope. The first Sunday of Advent was the first day of the new liturgical year, but I also embraced and anticipated it as my new year, the year where I say goodbye to the past me who wasn't the most faithful Catholic, and looking forward to the new year ahead where I have devoted my heart to Christ for the whole year, and the year after, and the year after...

The season of Advent is about waiting for Jesus. I'm awaiting the Baby Jesus' arrival to earth, while also awaiting His second coming. The waiting and "coming" of Advent is this twofold anticipation. I must really use this season to prepare my heart and soul, as if Jesus' second coming could be any day now. Will I be ready? Rarely are any of us truly ready, but are we doing everything we can to prepare our hearts? That is the goal.

The Catholic Church has some beautiful Advent traditions to help us on this journey. I didn't grow up with most of these traditions, but I'm determined to make them a staple in the Evans household. Not only are these great educational and spiritual exercises for my husband and I, but I hope they are just as memorable and valuable to our future children!

 

Here is what my husband and I are doing/will do this Advent season:

 

1.       The Advent Wreath
This is probably the most common tradition of all. A simple wreath with three purple candles and one pink candle, but this is more than just a decoration or centerpiece. The four candles follow the four Sundays of Advent. My husband and I have made it a point to eat dinner at the table every night. Before we eat, we turn the lights out and then light the appropriate candle(s) while singing. On weekdays, we sing O Come O Come Emmanuel and on Sundays, when we add a new candle, we sing the good ol’ Advent Candle song that we remember from our childhoods. "Light the Advent candle one..."
 
2.       The Empty Manger
Advent is a time to prepare for Jesus’ coming, so it doesn’t make much sense to have a full nativity scene, which even has the baby Jesus already in it. Sometimes we humans don’t notice something until it is gone. Is the full nativity scene just another Christmas decoration? Seeing that empty manger reminds me of Who should be in it, and I’m looking forward to the day when I can make the crèche “complete.”

3.       The Jesse Tree
Aside from doing this my 6th grade year, this is new to both of us. The Jesse Tree covers Christ's ancestry, from Adam and Eve to Mary and Jesus, and relates Scripture to salvation history. Each day we read certain passages from Scripture and then draw and hang an ornament with an image that represents the Scripture we just read. This is another tradition that I hope will become a big hit with our children in the Evans household someday!

4.    St. Nicholas Day
St. Nicholas Day already passed and I wrote about my day here.

5.    St. Lucy Day
This was a day I never heard of either, but I love traditions, and especially traditions from other countries. I think it really shows how universal (catholic) the Church is! St. Lucy (Lucia) was an Italian saint and Italians have their own traditions for her feast day. However, I was drawn to the Swedish tradition for her feast day, so this year, on December 13, I will bake a braided bread in the shape of a wreath. In Sweden, the oldest daughter wears a white dress and a red sash and stockings and brings coffee and bread to the family at breakfast. Perhaps since I am the oldest (and only) daughter of my family, I can hold this tradition until I have a little one of my own.

6.    Daily Scripture, meditation, and prayer
I picked up a small book at our local Catholic bookstore with daily reflections of the Daily Readings, a meditation topic, and a prayer. My husband and I do this every morning before we get ready for work. It has been a nice (and new) way to read through Scripture and pray before I really start my day.

"Advent, this powerful liturgical season that we are beginning, invites us to pause in silence to understand a presence. It is an invitation to understand that the individual events of the day are hints that God is giving us, signs of the attention he has for each one of us."

---Pope Benedict VXI, Homily at First Vespers of Advent, November 28, 2009

 

 

St. Nicholas and the Eastern Church

Today (December 6) is the feast day of St. Nicholas. I have brief but fond memories of St. Nicholas day in grade school. Tradition is such that St. Nick leaves treats or gifts in a child's shoes if he or she leaves them out. At my school, we all got to take our shoes off and line them up in the hallway. (As a side note, we had to wear uniforms so anytime we were out of the normal dress code for any reason, even if it was one shoeless class, it was an amazing day) At the end of class, we had to go get our shoes and voila! St. Nicholas had come by with candy canes!

St. Nick actually visited our house this morning too... my husband found a candy cane in his shoe before work. Me, I found this in my lunch box:

 

It's always great to keep even small traditions alive. This is something we plan to continue and play up with our children someday!

Anyways, I read multiple blogs today about the real St. Nicholas. It's absolutely amazing to learn about a person that everyone has heard of, yet few people actually know who he was! Of course, the St. Nicholas of old eventually evolved into the modern-day Santa Claus, but the two couldn't have been more different. If you're interested in lots of details, you can read them here or here.

In short, St. Nicholas was born in a small town in Asia Minor in modern Turkey in the year 280 AD, and later became archbishop of another Asia Minor city, Myra. Before everyone started looking at him with their jolly, rosy Santa Claus glasses, he was arguably most remembered for punching someone.

The year is 325. The place is Nicaea, a small town near the Black Sea in what is now Turkey. Thousands of priests, 318 bishops, two papal lieutenants and the Roman emperor Constantine are gathered to face a looming church crisis…..

 

One of the churchmen rises to speak. Arius, from the Egyptian city of Alexandria, tells the gathering that Jesus was not divine. He was just a prophet. Suddenly, a second man is on his feet, an obscure, cantankerous bishop named Nicholas. He approaches Arius, fist raised menacingly. There are gasps. Would he dare? He would. Fist strikes face. Arius goes down. He will have a shiner. Nick, meanwhile, is set upon by holy men. His robes are torn off. He is thrown into a dungeon.

So much for jolly old St. Nicholas!

But hey, he was a true Christian defending Christ's Divinity!

In my searching for information on St. Nick, I came across a fact that I did not previously know. St. Nicholas was a saint through the Eastern Church... often called the Eastern Rite, but really the Eastern Catholic Church. This perplexed me a little. My initial thought was that the Eastern Church had broken off from the Roman Catholic Church in 1054 and that we were more or less separated since then, like we are from Protestants. So what started out as a day to learn about jolly old Saint Nicholas turned into me digging for information on Eastern and Western Churches.

What I found was great! I have had questions about the status of Eastern Churches, since they broke off long before Protestants did. I found this great page that explains the once-unified Christian church, the Catholic Church, that all Christians belonged to until the East-West schism of 1054. Eventually, over the next 900 years, many Eastern Churches became re-united with Rome. The core Catholic beliefs are the same, East and West recognize the pope as the Supreme Pontiff, but the liturgical style in the East most reflects the local culture and ancient practices.

The good, or bad, thing about the internet is that one page is full of links to other pages. Naturally, as I was thirsty for knowledge, I followed a lot of these links. I found a Q&A page from a Byzantine (Eastern) Church and another page about Byzantine Catholics, the Melkites, explaining the union with the western Roman Catholic Church. Basically, I can attend an Eastern Church, receive the Eucharist (because they, too, consecrate it into the actual Flesh and Blood of Jesus), and fulfill my "Sunday requirement" there.

As it was so beautifully stated on the American Catholic website, "All, East and West, belong to the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church."

 

 

Doing even a little bit of research in the history of a 2000 year old church can take you to many places, from Santa Claus, to St. Nicholas of Myra, to the East-West Schism, to my realizing that I can attend a Byzantine Church.

 

Just another day!

St. Nicholas, glorious Confessor of Christ,

assist us in thy loving kindness.