Adventide interlude

An announcement, a prayer, some paraliturgy

Much as I would have loved to get the third and final installment in my Old Hispanic Liturgy primer out before the holidays, delightful life events (see below) prevented me from doing any of the more in-depth analysis required for elucidating the liturgical terminology I hope to include in that piece. Since I have acquired a few new subscribers here and there in the interim (welcome! Many of you have come in as recommendations from my dad’s substack) please consider checking out the first two installments below if you have yet to read them. At the end of today’s piece, you’ll be treated to a brief but timely example of the Old Hispanic prayers for this season.

A non-academic guide to the Old Hispanic Liturgy Part 1: The Visigoths

PART 2: Isidore and the Visigothic Church

Presenting: Martinmas baby!

yep, there’s a baby in there!

N.B. If you ever find yourself doing a newborn photo shoot in 19 degrees, snow, and severe wind chill I have some great tips for making it work. The tips: warm coat + baby snowsuit.

Our newest blessing joined us early in the hours of Martinmas (nowadays more popularly known as Veteran’s day, Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, or Polish Independence Day depending on the nationality of the person whom I am telling about the baby). St. Martin was extremely popular among the Visigoths, with several feasts related to him, his ordination, and the translation of his relics populating their liturgical calendar. Martinmas traditionally ushered in the season of Advent or “St. Martin’s lent” in late antiquity (The Visigoths began Advent on the Sunday following 11/11). Since learning about the importance of this feast from my Visigothic liturgy studies, I have always considered it a timely lamppost shining toward the new liturgical year. And now, it is a key turning point in our own family’s history!

Advent paraliturgy wins: calendars, wreaths, and clove oranges

Knowing that our baby would arrive shortly before Thanksgiving, I made great efforts to ensure some intentional Advent activities for my older child well ahead of time. The year my firstborn arrived, I had Big Dreams of doing a DIY Advent calendar every year. In years past I have always fallen short of my lofty goals of putting one together that combines proper liturgicul anticipation with Christmas magic. This year, I actually pulled it off.

My son’s newfound interest in puzzles prompted the idea of a 24-piece puzzle spread out across the days of December. This year, after hours of neurotically shopping on waldorf-y websites, I finally selected a gorgeous specimen.¹ Did my son lose the first piece on the first day and I eventually found it in…a torn envelope that fell out of our personal property tax notification? yes.² Has fiddling around with each successive piece and seeing the colorful shapes multiply each day been a fantastic and fruitful activity that maintains some continuity during an otherwise chaotic Advent season? definitely yes! You can easily find 24-piece puzzles at all price points and materials (here’s a Bluey puzzle that you can grab for next year at Five Below).

I am adamantly not a crafty mom and my toddler is not a particularly crafty toddler (he’s more process than product-oriented anyway so he usually loses interest in any intentional “project”). I bought a gorgeous Advent wreath from His Girl Sunday a few years ago and I plop it on a cute little fake greenery wreath from Aldi, so I am not team “forage for evergreens” for this purpose. However, so that we could still engage with the Advent wreath in a more child-appropriate tactile way, I overcame my anti-craftiness this one time and got creative. Using random junk that was out and in the way anyway (tissue paper from some baby gifts, cardboard from amazon boxes, plus a random glue stick I found tucked away in a closet) toddler and I put together a fun simulacrum of the more elegant wreath on the dining room table. It took barely 10 minutes to make, and it is easy enough to recreate next year that I can throw it out at the end of the season guilt-free! We have gotten great mileage out of this craft–it’s been worn as a hat a la St. Lucy, decorated various surfaces, and provided ample fodder for hands-on conversations about liturgical colors.

“Junk” Advent wreath. 10/10 very sustainable.

Speaking of which, my son came home from his Catholic Montessori school pointing at the Advent calendar and singing a song about the liturgical colors. I finally found a video with the lyrics so I could fill in the blanks. I highly recommend if you have little ones asking about the priest’s vestments and the decor in Church changing!

Finally, we visited Yorktown with some dear friends this past weekend and the American Revolution Museum at Yorktown had a hands-on period-correct demonstration of making clove oranges! This was loads of fun and we will be doing this at home today.

Advent paraliturgy fails: anything requiring me to use my brain

Don’t be fooled! I just had a baby and there has been plenty of “not-winning” this Advent as well. I put 6 local Christmas parades and similar festivities into the family calendar weeks ago and we made it to…one…the only one within a fifteen minute radius…because the toddler brought home a cold from somewhere and naturally I got it the worst. I took the same toddler to a kids-oriented nutcracker mini-performance with a professional ballet company and he yelled “I don’t like this part” at the gorgeous dewdrop fairy. I keep trying to play Advent hymns in the car but somehow we always end up listening to the Veggie Tales Christmas albums. And while I’ve managed to listen to a couple of Kristin Haakenson and friends’ beautiful Still Advent reflections for this season, my Advent has felt far more like “buffeted along the stormy sea of life with the occasional rest while holding a baby” than a verse from Still Still Still, one of my favorite Christmas carols.

Perhaps the most embarrassing incident–my dear son, who has been suffering from a typical toddler virus for most of the last week, kept taking his Pottery Barn personalized Chewbacca stocking off its hook (we hang them on a set of key hooks because our mantel piece needs to be re-installed) and “playing robot” which meant putting it on his arm and making beeping sounds. At some point last week, he was doing this while I made dinner, and after dinner the stocking was…nowhere to be found. I begged! I entreated! I cajoled! I even said that Santa wouldn’t know he lived here without the stocking bearing his name! but he insisted he didn’t know where it was. I turned the house upside down and even checked the china cabinet and laundry room in case he stowed it away there. No dice.

Dear reader, I found it on top of the fridge. The only explanation is that I, the mom, put it there to keep it safe from grabbing hands. I have no memory of doing this.

I have made reparations by turning on the Peppa Pig Winter Wonderland special.

A Visigothic Advent Benediction

Adueniat super uos gratie placidus superne respectus, et inlustret uos lhesu Christi Domini nostri et Saluatoris aduentus. Amen. Non recedat a cordibus uestris, qui nasci dignatus est ex utero Virginis Matris. Amen

May the peaceful refuge of grace from above come over you, and may the arrival of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior illuminate you. Amen.

May He not withdraw from your hearts, who deigned to be born from the womb of the Virgin Mother. Amen.

This is just an excerpt from the closing prayer for the fourth Sunday of Advent in the Old Hispanic Liturgy.³ Every time I dig into the liturgical texts from this tradition, I am blown away by how every line is just packed with devotion, theology, and beauty. This particular prayer juxtaposes nicely for contemplative purposes with Matthew 8:8; Domine non sum Dignus, the Centurion’s prayer. Furthermore, I love the assumption that Jesus is already in the hearts of the faithful, and we need but ask him to stay.

A very Merry, sacred, and restful Christmas to you all! I am so grateful that you stick around for my occasional musings. Now pray for me that I can pull off another Twelfth Night party with a newborn in the house!⁴

1. Just be warned if you’re a longtime Grimms fan–this one is not made in Germany (I think it said Bosnia on the label) and the pieces are not as heavy & less vibrantly colored than e.g. the rainbow stackers. Still gorgeous and fun!

2. Frankly with the resale value of European-made wooden toys these days, I should have just sent it in!

3. Just an excerpt because the last section has a weird future participle situation that I am still puzzling through.

4. I caved to common sense made this year’s party a potluck. I have a weird hangup about hosting potlucks but there was no other option because I can barely get dinner on the table for 3 people, not to speak of 30!