Saturday, December 23, 2006

Advent IV

Purify our conscience, Almighty God, by your daily visitation...

This year Advent IV is exactly that: a daily. Monastics celebrate the evening before: First Vespers of the next day (whatever it is) so we will get the full 24 hours of what is normally a week.

Most people won't celebrate Advent IV until tomorrow morning sometime. The clergy and sacristans in the various parishes will be rushing around trying to fit it all in. Our community will be attending mass at the Cathedral for a nice change of pace... then back home to get everything in order for an 8:00 Christmas Eve creche blessing, mass and wassail party. No midnight mass this year. Our median age gets higher each year and we need our sleep to face the dinner preparations for Christmas Day.

Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve... called First Vespers of the Nativity. I feel a little short-changed on Advent myself, this year, but not because I didn't get everything done (which I didn't) but because I was really enjoying it as a Season. That's okay. Maybe next year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for your Advent entries this year. I have so enjoyed the glimpses of your monastic life, and I used the entries as my springboard for thinking about the season.

I hope you'll continue blogging. You do have readers out here.