Advent

Advent Sunday is New Year’s Day in the Christian church. It is the beginning of the Christian calendar, and marks the end of the longest season (Trinity) and the start of the expectant and penitential preparation for the Holy Nativity. The term Advent comes from the Latin Adventus, which means coming or arrival. In the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian calendars, Advent Sunday is the fourth Sunday before December 25^th. The word Adventus is a translation of the Greek word Parousia, which also means arrival, commonly used to refer to the second coming of Christ; and the ecclesiastical theme of the readings, collects, prayers and teachings during the period usually reflects this. 

The earliest references to Advent as a recognised and nominated passage of Christian time occur in the Gelasian Sacramentary, an 8^th century manual for conducting divine worship, which makes provision for specific Advent collects, epistles and gospel readings on each of the four Sundays before Christmas and also for the corresponding Wednesdays and Fridays. From the fourth century the period of Advent, like Lent, was kept as one of strict fasting.  This was relaxed in the Middle Ages, although dancing and other festivities were still prohibited. The third Sunday is known as Gaudete Sunday (or Rose Sunday) and, traditionally, fasting was relaxed on this day. The Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches still observe Advent as a period of fasting.

The liturgical colour mostly associated with the period, and used for altar cloths, vestments and other decorative church hangings, is purple, although the Lutheran Church uses blue, as did the Sarum Rite – a liturgical rite based on the Roman rite and used in the diocese of Salisbury from the 11^th century until the Reformation. Traditionally there are no flowers in churches during Advent. Instead, a wreath of holly and ivy decorates the church. The evergreen, circular wreath symbolises God, who does not change and who has no beginning and no end. The holly symbolises the crown of thorns which Christ is said to have worn during the events leading up to the Crucifixion, as told in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John. Around the wreath four candles are placed with a fifth one in the centre. These candles are lit, one at a time, on each of the four Sundays in Advent. The unlit candles represent darkness and the lighted ones represent the gradual transition from darkness to light. The centre one is lit during the first Mass of Christmas, usually held just before midnight on December 24^th.

In England, there was a custom for poor women to carry around the Advent Images, two dolls dressed to represent Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary. A halfpenny coin was expected from everyone to whom these were exhibited, and bad luck was thought to menace the household not visited by the doll-bearers before Christmas Eve. In Italy, amongst other Advent celebrations is the entry into Rome in the last days of Advent of the Calabrian Pifferari, or bagpipe players, who play before the shrines of Mary. According to Italian tradition, the shepherds played these pipes on the hillside, and also when they came to the manger at Bethlehem.

Nowadays the passage of Advent and the process of preparing for Christmas is marked in many homes by the keeping of an Advent calendar, opening one door at a time to reveal an image associated with the time of year, or by the daily burning, one segment at a time, of a numbered Advent candle.