Lord Jesus, Come!

Today is the first Sunday in Advent. While I can’t start eating my ‘Advent’ calendar yet, I still think that this is a pretty auspicious time.

In his homily, the priest spoke about Advent as being a time of hopefulness and preparation, especially in our parish given recent events. No one really knows what’s going to happen, though the bishop has said they have no intention of shutting the parish down. There is waiting, in hope, for a new parish priest. The board of Wardens has expressed to the bishop their desire to have a resident, full-time priest. They were then informed that our church was actually the only one in the entire diocese to have still had a resident, full-time priest. Nevertheless, the hope is still to have one. A time of waiting, of expectation and uncertainty: the parish family is in Advent.

Purple, of course, is the liturgical color of Advent in most western church Rites, although some churches have replaced the purple with blue. I asked someone about the blue, and I’m still not really sure what it’s actually supposed to mean. ‘Making more money for vestment makers,’ is not really the deep liturgico-theological revelation that I was hoping for, even though that was joke. The idea that it’s the color of the sky just before dawn is a nice one, I find: the time just before the sun comes out. That actually captures aspects of Advent very nicely. Ultimately, the reason blue is used is because the older Sarum Rite used blue, and this is a sort of liturgical return. A return to the time before the Roman Catholic Church suppressed all local customs at variance with those of the Latin Rite.

Blue vestments are actually still used in some Catholic churches in the Philippines and Spain during the observance of Marian feasts (of which there are, if you keep them all, many many). The current laws of the Roman Catholic Church do not recognize blue as a valid (or licit) liturgical color at all. Although blue was worn widely within the so-called ‘Gallican-Rite’ churches – Spain, etc. – in the Gregorian Liturgical Calendar and elsewhere blue is omitted. Presently, limited indults have been granted to specific churches to use blue vestments while celebrating Marian Inmaculada feasts, though I might say the practice is still generally discouraged. It is licit to use blue trim and such-like things on white vestments for Marian feasts, but those vestments are white. I guess what I’m trying to say is that, in the Latin Rite, blue is NOT a legitimate liturgical color.

I don’t personally think that blue is an invalid color for Advent. I just don’t like it, not that I’ve ever seen it; I don’t like the idea of it, of what it would mean for my impression of purple during other liturgical moments. While Canon Law does not list Advent as one of the Church’s penitential seasons (§ 1250), I think erasing the penitential aspect is a mistake. The General norms for the Liturgical Year has this to say: “Advent has a twofold character: as a season to prepare for Christmas when Christ’s first coming to us is remembered; as a season when that remembrance directs the mind and heart to await Christ’s Second Coming at the end of time. Advent is thus a period for devout and joyful expectation” (§ 39). Yes, there is an emphasis on joy and well there should be: the end of days – and Christmas – are joyous occasions when the world and God are fully met together, and the kingdom of God is fully realized. But this preparation to welcome God does not involve only rejoicing: to make ourselves ready we have to be penitent. Because the coming of God is for us, not for God, and that implies a need of it, a need which we must recognize in order to be able to welcome the kingdom. Not that I think the gates to heaven are one big Confessional in the Sky, but that there is an inevitable sorrow at our human failings accompanying Christ’s coming. After all, Christ’s coming is an event that happened, is happening, and will happen. The coming of the kingdom and our freedom in joy is integrally linked to his victory on the Cross, his triumph over our sin and death, and we should not in our anticipation forget that.

I like the purple because it structures the liturgical year so that Advent and Lent are twinned seasons. They are tied together by the same color – Advent also has pink on Gaudete Sunday – and by the fact that they are both, fundamentally, seasons of expectation and preparation. Sure the emphasis on joy and repentance is different in one and the other, but both are always present. I think the pairing of purple helps us to remember that. So when we wear purple in sorrow, it is also infused with joyous waiting, and when we wear it in joyous waiting, it is always suffused with the Sacrifice. Both remind us that we must keep ready, be waiting, be watchful, because the Lord comes unexpectedly – as a child whose birth was unnoticed by most of the world, as a man crucified (and then risen), as a glorious king whose kingdom comes like a thief in the night. It is that kingdom, always that kingdom, for which we are waiting. Christians are a people in Advent.

The person I asked about the use of blue told me that some parishes use different shades of purple for the two seasons, light for Advent and dark for Lent, to help emphasize the difference. I think that’s a GREAT idea. Unfortunately, my home parish can’t do it because there is only one set of altar dressings and one set of purple vestments. I did notice something interesting today, though. The altar is dressed in dark purple, but the side altars – one of which holds the tabernacle and the other a copy of that Jesus-face thing – are dressed in light purple, which also covers the tabernacle. The deacon’s stole matches the dark altar, and the priest’s chasuble matches the light altars. Interesting.

In a feat of stunning making-something-accidental-have-a-deeper-meaning, I think that this is brilliant and makes an interesting point. So the altar where the Sacrifice is offered is the dark purple of sorrow and repentance – appropriate. The altars holding the Blessed Sacrament, the ultimate embodiment of the Sacrifice among us, and the picture of Veronica’s veil, from within Jesus’ suffering but also an astonishing gift that endures, are dressed in light purple, the color of hope and expectant joy – also appropriate. The remaining presence of Jesus among us associated with the happier and the Sacrifice with the sadder, and yet both living within the same family of purple, which is not fragmented but…differently shaded. The deacon, who serves the priest, is more strongly associated with the repentance, and the priest who stands in persona Christi with the joy. The Sacrifice sees both shades at the altar and is surrounded by both.

Perhaps this suggests that the kingdom of God is served in penitence and accomplished in joy.