Fight the Anti-Advent

Some rather nice violet vestments belonging to the Latin Mass Society,
used at the Guild of St Clare Sewing Retreat last Lent.

My latest for Catholic Answers.

It begins:

On the first Sunday of Advent, in place of green, priests celebrating the Mass don vestments of violet, the color of penance, and the Gloria is not said. In this respect, Advent resembles Lent: just as we do penance as we await the liturgical celebration of Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, so we do as we await his birth.

Nevertheless, Advent is a carefully calibrated penitential season. Whereas there is no gloria, there is an Alleluia.

Advent has not, historically, usually been regarded as requiring the same degree of penance as Lent. A penitential season leading up to Christmas enters the Church’s historical record in France in the year 480, with fasting three days a week from St. Martin’s Day (November 11), but as it spread to other countries, it became shorter and less severe.

Read the whole thing there.

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