Celtic Advent - Day XV - November 29

 

Celtic Advent - Day XV - November 29

Today is the first day of Advent on the Church's liturgical calendar. At tables in many homes - Christian and not - the first candle of the Advent wreath will be lit at sunset or at the beginning of the evening meal. Perhaps some prayers will be said which includes something about the significance of that particular candle.

Someone somewhere decided sometime ago that each of the four candles stood for something: hope, love, joy and peace and the fifth one in the middle is the Christ candle. 

When I was a child, my grandmother said that each candle stood for those who prepared us for the Messiah: The Patriarchs, the Prophets, The Virgin Mary, John the Baptist and, of course, the Christ candle.

A few years ago, I started an Advent Wreath to remember the women identified in the genealogy of Matthew's gospel:  Tamar of Judah, Rahab the Canaanite of Jericho, Ruth of Moab, Bathsheba the Righteous, and, of course, the candle for the Theotokos, Mary. (Yes, if you click on each of those links, it will take you to the meditation for each of those women.)

The real controversy - and, of course, there would be a controversy about an Advent wreath as there is about everything else liturgical in the church - is which color candle to use. 

Tradition has it that there are three purple, one pink and one white. But, since the church has been more recently celebrating Advent as a season with its own intent and merits, the penitent purple has been switched for sarum blue. 

The important thing is to have a special "Mary" candle on the third Sunday in Advent. The color of that candle is traditionally pink. +Catherine Waynick was one of the first women to be bishop diocesan in The Episcopal Church. 

I remember clearly her first Advent letter to the diocese in which she added a PS: "People ask me why the third candle of the Advent Wreath is pink. And now, I will tell you: The third candle of the Advent Wreath is pink because Mary really, really, really wanted a girl."

The problem, of course, is finding purple or blue candles. Many supermarkets have a whole section of candles but the color selection for dinner table candles is usually limited to white or red and sometimes green but rarely purple or blue. 

Necessity being the mother of invention - and people being creatures of forgetfulness until it's too late to order them online - you will find some Advent wreathes with four red, one green and one white candle. Or, depending on the stock in the store, four green, one red and one white. 

Or, sometimes, especially for those who really don't know anything about the Advent wreath except it's a Christmas "decoration" and it looks lovely, all five candles will be white. Or, blue. Or, purple. 

And, sometimes there will be four candles and no fifth for Jesus (pun quite intended). 

This - especially this last one of no Jesus Candle - the drives the purists absolutely right 'round the bend and back again.  I have seen some people loose their stuff in a guest's home about their Advent wreath. Which, I think, makes Mary and Joseph and the Baby Jesus and all the shepherds and angel howl with distress. 

Perfection is absolutely the least thing important about Advent, much less the candles on the Advent wreath.  

In the first place, perfection is not the reason Jesus came into the world. Had we all been perfect, there would have been no need for the incarnation and even less need for redemption. 

It's also absolutely contrary to the significance of the four candles - hope, love, joy and peace. 

So, no arguing over the candles, please.  Let's look, instead, at the intent and celebrate that.

I don't know what is done for Celtic Advent. When I google Celtic Advent Candles or Wreaths, I usually get lovely ceramic or metal wreaths with Celtic triquetra designs and, you guessed it, four candles. 

Which, I suppose, is just fine. I've supplemented mine with tea candles. Just don't send the Celtic Liturgy Police to my home and no one will get hurt.

In two days - December 1st - the commercial Advent calendar begins. The tradition in lots of countries is to create a calendar for the kiddos - usually of a material like felt - with 25 small pockets, each numbered for the 25 days of Christmas in December. 

A small, sweet treat is placed into each pocket and, every day, the children are rewarded for their patient waiting by being allowed a treat at the end of the day. 

In homes not so lucky, the Advent Calendar will be made of paper and the "window" on each number will be opened to reveal a character in the Nativity Story and one of the parents will tell that character's story. 

In very lucky adult homes, the Advent Calendar will come from Aldi and you will have your choice of 24 amazing different cheeses and/or 24 small bottles of wine or beer. I kid you not. 

If you have never been generously gifted with an Aldi calendar or bought one for yourself, 2020 may just be the perfect year to indulge. Run right out tomorrow and get one while there's still time. (They also have bath soap and moisturizers for those who do not imbibe.) It may be one way to cope with the last few remaining weeks of this annus horribillis. 

Advent wreaths are - or, at least, can be - a little daily meditation on the journey toward the Incarnation. It is a journey which begins, of necessity, in the dark as an embryo deep in the womb, but it moves and grows always, to the Light. 

As we light each candle, the amount of light increases, which is wonderfully symbolic of Jesus, the light of the world, coming into our dark and broken world to illuminate the path to healing and wholeness, redemption and salvation, and hope, love, joy and peace. 

Whether you observe a Celtic or Traditional or Cultural Advent, take some time to consider those times when hope, love, peace and joy came into your life. Did it come as a gift or a surprise or was it something you intentionally sought? 

Perhaps you'll want to spend some time thinking about the virtue of patience and whether or not it is in your possession; and, if not whether it might be a good spiritual discipline to cultivate through a spiritual exercise this Advent.

I will leave you with this Blessing for Advent I by Jan Richardson

A Blessing for Traveling in the Dark

Go slow
if you can.
Slower.
More slowly still.
Friendly dark
or fearsome,
this is no place
to break your neck
by rushing,
by running,
by crashing into
what you cannot see.

Then again,
it is true:
different darks
have different tasks,
and if you
have arrived here unawares,
if you have come
in peril
or in pain,
this might be no place
you should dawdle.

I do not know
what these shadows
ask of you,
what they might hold
that means you good
or ill.
It is not for me
to reckon
whether you should linger
or you should leave.

But this is what
I can ask for you:

That in the darkness
there be a blessing.
That in the shadows
there be a welcome.
That in the night
you be encompassed
by the Love that knows
your name.