{COUPON CODE ALERT for St. Augustine Academy Press, good for their Black Friday sales! Scroll down!}

Trying to get some crafting done! How about you?

I have some Collective Memory thoughts that relate to the liturgical seasons…

Advent begins next week, and I may not be able to check back in here for a while. Not only do I want to work on gifts, I also need to finish up the draft for my book — down to 750 pages, go me.

So let me give one last try (for now) at encouragement in beginning or renewing a deep devotion to the ancient liturgical year.

The world has something to sell, and that’s fine, because we certainly need to prepare for Christmas and it takes time to figure out what we need to buy (even if it’s supplies for making!).

We could succumb utterly to their ways by going full Christmas already, by decorating and listening to the “holiday soundtrack” that certainly does not contain any actual religious content but I digress.

As adults we feel that we could do that. It’s tempting. Many of us are tired and demoralized; and the reason Christmas endures, even in our utterly secular and pagan times, is that it offers respite and solace on a natural level (for that is the point — God made man — but don’t forget the rest — that men might become divine).

Advent feels like a denial of all that. And because the Church herself has relinquished some of her ancient wisdom, even she seems to acquiesce in putting this season to us as a sort of blank, a waiting period in a dreary bus stop. Who wouldn’t rather just go ahead and, well, not celebrate (Holly Jolly Christmas always seems forced, to me) but… anesthetize?

But Advent is not just four weeks of waiting; it’s not a pinched denial of pleasure (as paltry as the “pleasures” of the commercial season are). And each week is not just like the others.

If we pay close attention, trying to recover what was lost, so much will be gained. The liturgical year actually offers us a chance to enter into God’s will for our spiritual life at every moment and to ponder truths and realities that, if approached analytically, would fill encyclopedias of theology and never be complete. How can we reject that offer? And still claim to want to know His will and to learn more about Him?

During Advent, if we care to hear, the messages offered in the liturgy have to do with salvation history, prophecy, darkness, light, Our Lady in her splendor, the angels in their myriads, the impending Incarnation, the Second Coming… each week has its own texture and emphasis. Each week also has its own feasts to lighten the gloom. St. Nicholas, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, St. Lucy’s Day — each one with its own message of the Kingdom of God. If we are jingle-belling ourselves into jolliness prematurely, we will miss it all.

But most importantly, if we recover all this along with the season’s own music, traditions, and anticipation, our children will benefit from the only “curriculum” that has the power to sustain them as the world tries to steal them away.

The world also effectively deprives us of Christmas, for it folds down its festivities, such as they are, on the 25th of December. Our children will wake up on the 26th to its dryness.

We may feel safe from worldly ways (hubris, perhaps?), but our children have no defenses, other than what we give them — and make no mistake, very few ramparts are built with words and admonishments. They are built with our way of life. Past generations gladly denied themselves and held sloth at bay for the privilege of passing along this patrimony intact.

There must be a few who will stay with the old ways, keeping the “for every time there is a season” verities alive. We said we would, we like the idea in theory, but at the first striking of “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” we surrender to the mall mentality, which may I point out is itself on its last legs! Talk about selling your birthright for a mess of pottage!

So let’s enjoy Thanksgiving, and a week from this Sunday, let’s begin by lighting a purple candle, starting some crafting with the children, and singing, through the season: Sleepers, Wake! Lo, How a Rose ‘Ere Blooming, Alma Redemptoris Mater chant, The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came, On Jordan’s Bank the Baptist’s Cry, Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus, Comfort, Comfort Now My People, and maybe only beginning on the 17th of December, O Come Emmanuel. (Here you can find a treasury of resources for music in the season of Advent. Or see if you can find an old Anglican hymnal for Advent carol completeness. My list here follows the Propers of each Sunday… )

Order a sweet Advent calendar now, either a religious one or an old-timey one (affiliate links), but not one with chocolates. How much we will enjoy our chocolates when the Christmas season begins on the 25th!

The liturgical seasons are rich, with richnesses beyond imagining. Only by living them will we begin to uncover these treasures! And our children will accompany us — truly, the consolation of their wonder, of the light in their eyes, will give us more heart than any blandishment the world has to offer.

The giveaway of My Book of the Church’s Year is now closed. If you won, an email will be wending its way to you — please be sure that LMLDBlog at gmail dot com is not going into your spam file! (Confidential to Mary Ann V: check your spam file for a message about the previous giveaway.)

For everyone else, I am delighted to offer you, courtesy of St. Augustine Academy Press, a code for 15% off the book and everything on their site, good through the Black Friday sales! So go scoop up all the treasures! The code is LMLD15.

bits & pieces

Last week I linked to an excellent interview with Bishop Schneider, in which he encourages families to recover the home as the domestic church. This week they have an interview with me on how The Little Oratory (affiliate link) can help put his advice into practice.

I highly recommend that everyone watch this speech by a priest on the subject of morality and conscience in decision-making, specifically as they relate to vaccines derived from aborted fetal tissue.

A thoughtful blog post about what the author, Niall Gooch, calls “the bourgeois virtues.” Almost like the Four Cardinal virtues…

from the archives

If you don’t have one stashed away from last year (I do — it’s in my freezer as we speak!), now is the time to get started on your Plum Pudding, or “fire pie” as my granddaughter called it yesterday. Here is a tutorial from moi: Plum Pudding

Archives and liturgical living: Make your crown cake for tomorrow’s feast of Christ the King (in the Ordinary Form).

I have a ton of posts on Advent, besides the ones I linked here. Search that tag and see if something encourages you. Keep it simple, but keep it!

liturgical living

Today is the feast of St. Clement.

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