Perspectives On The Environment For Advent Worship

Advent worship involves both penitence and joy, moods that can be conveyed by the visual environment of the worship space. Adapt the following suggestions to local custom.

Passing into Winter How does one decorate for Advent in a manner that respects the sobriety of the season—that brings about a feeling of "not yet," a sense of waiting and longing? Begin by stripping away the harvest bounty of November. Simplify and clean the worship place and its entryways. Take a long walk out-of-doors, and look at how the world moves into winter. Advent is the church's winter, a season with a heightened risk of starvation, of disease, of isolation. Winter is exile, a time of pregnancy and anxiety, a passing into death and judgment. The cooperation and self-sacrifice needed if we all are to survive the season can become for us a holy sign. The Advent worship environment should bring reminders of winter—not as cute decorations but as a memento mori, a reminder of death. In contrast, Christmastime is the church's "second spring." No sooner does the sun turn its course back toward the light, than we Christians banish winter with flowers and lights and green branches held high. The Messiah comes to comfort our fear, to warm what is cold, to turn winter into everlasting spring. Use natural wintry materials for Advent that are transformed with lights, greens, and ornaments for Christmastime. Near the font, images of John the Baptist and Isaiah can be used throughout the two seasons. The genealogy of Jesus is properly part of the days of Christmastime, flowing back a bit into the final seven days of Advent—the week of the "O" Antiphons. A "Jesse tree" can be the parish's Christmas tree, set up on December 17 in the vestibule or gathering place. Ornaments are prepared throughout Advent and put on the tree on Christmas Eve. The Wheel of Time, the Crown of Heaven Advent wreaths may be suspended. Putting the wreath in a fixed position, such as on a table, defeats its function as a turning wheel. The wreath does not need to be decorated with ribbons or small banners or oddly colored candles. Nor should the image of the suspended wreath be forsaken in favor of four candles set in a row. The circle is the primary symbol; the candles are secondary. An old wagon wheel makes a sturdy frame—a prerequisite for a suspended wreath. Large, professionally made beeswax candles are more reliable than the colored paraffin pillar candles, which often drown their own wicks. The right combination of plumbing fixtures can be turned into candle holders. Hung with garland, the slowly rotating wheel is an enormously powerful symbol. If we stand underneath one, we have a gateway into timelessness, a hole to peek into heaven. it is the perfect vantage point to shout the words of Isaiah: "Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!" Midnight Blue and Deep Purple Historically speaking, the shade of purple one used for vestments had more to do with the dyestuffs available than with any particular significance among the various shades of purple. Vesture for penitential seasons came in every shade from blood red to blue-black. Somberness and sobriety seemed to be the primary aim of the colors. That is why festive purples or light blues are, traditionally speaking, inappropriate to Advent or Lent. Using distinct vesture colors for these two penitential seasons makes a necessary, if subtle, distinction between them. It is difficult to sustain much of an argument for the relative merits of either deep blue or deep purple. The two colors signify much the same things. They are the color of the dawn, the mythological color of royal blood, the color of ardor, of passion, of longing—and, in great contrast, of coldness, of frostbite, of midnight. An Antidote to the Shopping Season We need to learn the art of balancing liturgical touchstones—the elements returned year after year with the unexpected, jarring "voices in the wilderness"—elements that keep us from growing too comfortable or complacent. Although fine preaching is needed to distinguish for the assembly the images of gift giving, generosity, and the sanctity of material things (images that are more a part of Christmastime than Advent), there is really nothing good about greed, conspicuous consumption, or self-indulgence—nothing holy in a celebration that glorifies those who have and mocks those who have not. A countercultural December affects environment ministers most directly. For example, the weekend after Thanksgiving there are always a number of parishioners who want to know where the crèche is. People are more and more mimicking the early decorations of the shopping malls in their homes. Most people regard Advent as merely the ecclesiastical word for "holiday season." Even if the church holds off on the poinsettias until December 25, there is often pressure to decorate the worship space with evergreens throughout Advent, if only to get the most value from the dollars spent on them. Please resist this temptation. Just because the church may have an Advent wreath—a foretaste of Christmastime's greenery—there is no reason to hang wreaths on the front door of church. Besides, if the wreath is large and well constructed, and the church simplified and cleaned, you will not need much more to create a suitable environment for the parish to keep its Advent.