Inspired by the Visigoths: Intensifying a Short Advent
Advent is only 3 weeks (+1 day) long this year–the shortest possible length of time for Advent under the current reckoning. In 2022, with 28 days (four full weeks!) the Church experienced the longest possible advent season. Last year it felt like it crept up too soon, surprising us like a thief in the night, as one priest eloquently put it on that first Sunday where I, reeling in the wake of holiday travels with a 2 month old, could hardly believe Thanksgiving was over. This year, it seems like it is just popping by for a quick chat before dashing off in a flurry of snowflakes, tinsel, and Mariah Carey.
In light of this remarkable liturgical timetable, I find myself looking ahead more than usual to properly appreciate the season…and in the process, looking back to the middle ages for inspiration on how to do so.
It is of striking interest that Advent was added in the eleventh or twelfth century into the Peace and Truce of God as a time when no local war-making could occur (imagine if such measures were in place today!). One wonders if a resentful feudal Lord might have rejoiced at the idea of a short Advent, giving him extra time to exact revenge on his threatening neighbor. Alternatively, a long advent might give pause to those with pugnacious intent,
But the Peace and Truce of God established norms in a time when most of the West was on the same Roman liturgical calendar, which generally celebrated Advent for four weeks (though penitence starting from an earlier date was traditionally encouraged). If we long for a longer advent, we can turn the clock back a bit, to a time when Advent was kicked off by Martinmas, on November 11th. Let us settle ourselves in Iberia, one of the earliest places we know Advent was celebrated, where the Old Hispanic liturgy (also known as Visigothic or Mozarabic, this was the liturgy celebrated and refined by great saints such as Isidore of Seville and Ildephonsus of Toledo) started the season of expectation on the Sunday after Martinmas. (You can find a brief but helpful overview of the different reckonings of Advent-tides of ancient Western Liturgies here.)
It was during Advent that the Visigoths celebrated their great Marian feast sancte Mariae, standing in for the Annunciation and all other veneration of Mary throughout the year. This feast occurred on December 18, such that Christmas always fell on its octave. The anticipation of this great feast would then push the proper “Advent” spirit back even further, emphasizing and intensifying the previous five weeks. I wrote a bit about this feast day and why it was important for the Visigoths to celebrate one Marian feast right here.
Were Advent to have begun on Sunday, November 12 this year, it would literally double in length. What might we do with an Advent like that? Can one pre-anticipate Advent without prematurely celebrating Christmas?
Target, HomeGoods, and Hobby Lobby have already ushered in the hordes of festive faceless gnomes (why the gnomes??) that invite in turn hordes of white suburban moms to the aisles. I’ve never been particularly enthused to jump the gun on Christmas in any area other than shopping early Black Friday sales for Christmsa gifts. Frankly, I far prefer celebrating the twelve days of Christmas and making a fuss out of Epiphany. Growing up, we never even put up our Christmas tree till the third week of Advent (“pink candle Sunday”); short of an Advent calendar and a wreath, our house looked pretty bare for most of December.
However, jumping the gun on Advent in the spirit of the Visigoths and the early Church–not a bad idea. While others might be so inclined, I am not at a point in life where I can drape my home in purple cloths and avoid meat products for the next 6 weeks. (In my view, liturgical traditions historically harmonized with cultural ones, so I will let the Thanksgiving spirit linger at least until the last week of November.) Due to the fact that I and my crew will be traveling for two out of the three weeks of Advent (and Christmas day), I have been searching for ways to intensify the practice of Advent while we are still home such that we can anticipate the Chrischild’s coming with the proper combination of gravitas, introspection, and joy. Here are my three main ideas for paraliturgical practices stemming from my love of Visigothic history and desire to make magic for a toddler…
Create a proper advent calendar.
Advent calendars are trendy now. I think Aldi has about a dozen different varieties for adults and children alike featuring wines, chocolates, scented candles, cheeses, legos, Paw Patrol, and Cocomelon to name a few. Encroachment of conspicuous consumption notwithstanding, I think the concept of an advent calendar is great–building anticipation and excitement each day in a cohesive fashion. But how often do you see a modular advent calendar that can be updated to the appropriate number of days each year, varying from 22 to 28?
The closest solution I have found that doesn’t require me to make it from scratch (that’s a project for future, more competent me) is a 30-piece wall organizer like this one with handmade numbers pinned to each pocket and, of course, treats of your choosing. My child isn’t old enough to state preferences yet, so those treats will be very boring this year, but the possibilities really are endless. (Adorably, the maker of that lovely canvas organizer actually has a pack of cards to make it an advent calendar with customized activities written on each…and only 25 of them are numbered. Sad!)
Follow the feast days.
For the Visigoths, Advent was a season filled not just with anticipation, but exciting feasts like the dies Sancte Marie mentioned above. Because I am the lucky owner of a full set of Butler’s Lives of the Saints*, courtesy of my local Salvation army (the first 3 volumes) and a hunt through used book websites by my husband (the last installment), I have access to stories of Saints both famous and obscure for every day of the year. In December the feasts of Saints Nicholas and Lucy have their own well-attested traditions in East and West, but the time from Martinmas to December includes Cecilia, Anastasia, Acisclus (a Spanish Martyr, patron saint of Córdoba) and others in the Old Hispanic calendar. I love learning about new saints with bizarre names and equally bizarre hagiographies, and I look forward to finding hitherto yet unknown friends in Heaven in the coming weeks.
Examine the Liturgies.
Reading the Missal for days you do not attend Mass is always a robust complement to any liturgical season. To read the liturgical texts for the full Old Hispanic Advent, one need look no further than the very beginning of the Liber Sacramentorum, as Advent kicks off the start of the year’s liturgical cycle. There is a gorgeous digitized incunabulum of this liturgy from the revival of the Mozarabic liturgy that saved it from being entirely lost to liturgy at the Vatican library website here. I realize that I am one of about three people in the world who finds these texts interesting and to my knowledge they do not exist in translation in full. I was delighted to learn from this blog that the collects of the rite do exist in English, you can read the 19th century translations neatly organized by season and feast here. Advent is the first entry so I’ll save you the effort of clicking the link by including it here!
An even more daunting undertaking than the Sunday liturgies would be to read the Old Hispanic divine office prayers throughout Advent–while I have read a great deal of scholarship about the Mozarabic breviary, I have yet to read the text itself. A bucket list item for another year, perhaps!
My efforts this Advent, as they have in years past, will doubtless fall short of my aspirations. I am no liturgical living guru! However, if I make it to the “real” start of Advent with a little more knowledge under my belt and a little more peace and quiet in my prayer life, I feel that I will have a steady foundation for the whirlwind 3 weeks that lie ahead.
*Not only are Butler’s Lives very accessible to any readers (the biographies are very short), they acknowledge where hagiographical records are ill-attested or conflicting so you can draw your own conclusions about where history ends and legend begins.
Cover image courtesy of the Vatican Libraries.