The Gospel According to Andrew

All four Advent candles are burning now - or glowing softly, if you go in for LED candles as we do. Three of them are purple; one is rose. There's a logic in that proportion. Purple is the liturgical color of preparation, repentance, and what we might call sorrow redeemed. Rose is the color of joy, lit for the first time on Gaudete Sunday. It is a faithful joy rooted in God's steadfast love and committed to hope, but which does not pretend everything is rainbows and sunshine. Holy Joy coexists with the pain of loved ones missing, of martyrs suffering and dying, and of a world which is not yet as God has promised it will be.  I think there's an important insight embedded in the fact that the first three Feast days after Christmas commemorate martyrs. December 26 is the Feast of Stephen - as in "Good King Wenceslas looked out on the Feast of Stephen" - deacon and protomartyr. December 27th is the Feast of John the Evangelist. He is considered a "white" mar...

The Embertides are quarterly periods of fasting and prayer within the western Christian calendar. There's an old rhyming mnemonic which helps me remember how they fall within the year: "Lenty, Penty, Crucy, Lucy." That's a bit terse, so it might help to know Lucy means St. Lucy's day, December 13th, while "Crucy" is Holy Cross Day, or September 14th. Penty is the Feast of Pentecost. Lenty is Lent, which begins on Ash Wednesday. In each case, the Ember Days fall on the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday following. The Christian preference for fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays dates at least as far back as The Didache. These days remind me Jesus was betrayed on a Wednesday, crucified on a Friday, and "descended to the dead" on a Saturday. Seen in that light, they become echoes of Holy Week spread throughout the Christian Year. Two of these occasions, Advent and Lent, are already seasons of preparation. The other two fall, the ember days after "...