The Season of Advent
- St Clements Church Toronto
- 2 hours ago
- 2 min read
Advent is a season of hopeful expectation and preparation, when we ready our hearts to receive once more the Good News of God alive in the world through Jesus.
To help us prepare, Sundays in Advent, at the beginning of our worship experience, we will light candles on our Advent Wreath. This will help us mark the journey in a concrete and tangible way, with a moment to pause and reflect as we begin our time together.
We’re also connecting midweek over on zoom for Advent Midday Prayer, Wednesdays at 12:30pm. Pause in the middle of your day for prayer, reflection, and Scripture.
Join the meeting here: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84933265885
What is Advent?
Advent encompasses the four Sundays (and weeks) before Christmas. The word “advent” comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming”. The first day of Advent is the beginning of a new liturgical year in the church, and the entire season is one of waiting, longing, and keeping watch as we anticipate the birth of Jesus.
While the origins of Advent are hard to verify, elements of it have existed since the fifth century. However, the Advent wreath, one of the more distinctive symbols of Advent, hearkens back to only about the mid-1800s when it was developed by a German pastor to help children mark the passing of time until Christmas. Likewise, the Advent calendar was developed around the same time by German Lutherans.
How do people observe Advent? The Advent wreath and Advent calendar are two popular and tangible ways. Engaging in daily prayer or devotions, attending weekly worship services, fasting, and of course celebrating Christmas are all ways people observe Advent. Creating your own tradition can also be meaningful. Below is a list of helpful resources:
The Bishops’ Advent Retreat Evenings
Dec. 2: Bishop Mauricio Andrade - sign up here
Dec. 9: Bishop Kevin Robertson - sign up here
Dec. 16: Bishop Andrew Asbil - sign up here
Ideas for creating traditions during Advent:
1. To give the gift of peaceful moments, spend an evening with the lights off, using only candles or fire, relaxing and reading.
2. Go for nature walks.
4. Shifting the focus from Christmas presents to the presence of Christ by putting up a stocking with Jesus’ name on it. Throughout Advent, fill the stocking with “gifts” for Jesus. Family members can write down instances when they see each other performing acts of hope, peace, joy, and love – the themes represented on traditional Advent wreaths. Then, on Christmas morning, the family together empties the stocking and reads over the “gifts” inside.
5. Start a tradition of helping others, such as volunteering as a family, buying gifts for those in need, or donating necessities like toiletries to local shelters.
6. Adopt a tradition to help pray together: pieces of paper with each family member’s name are put in a jar. As each piece of paper is drawn out, the family says a prayer for that person.
All above ideas were taken from the article “Bringing Christmas Home: New family traditions for highlighting the meaning of the season” by Joelle Kidd in the December 2018 edition of the Anglican Journal. Kris Hamilton also contributed