When I started going to the parish I now call home, I was surprised that unlike other Western churches this parish, at odds with other parishes in the Anglican Rite (Episcopal), Advent began the Sunday after All Saints', much to the grumbling of many around me.
"Poor dears," thought I, "The Orthodox would have driven you to an early grave."
That's the thing, Advent is NOT a whole piece across Christendom (don't throw out that chocolate calendar just yet, okay? That's a secular deal and is just fine if you want to do it.) The Orthodox begin what they call the Nativity Fast on November 15 of whichever calendar the ethnic jurisdiction uses (which for those still on the Julian Calendar, Julian November 15 falls on Western November 28...fortunately for those wanting to have a Thanksgiving blow-out). The Roman Catholic Church in Milan, which uses the Ambrosian Rite, not the Roman Rite, as well as the Roman Catholic Church in Toledo, which uses the Mozarabic Rite, start Advent on the Sunday after St. Martin's Day, or November 11 (it is NO accident that Veteran's Day is the day of the patron saint of soldiers). This makes them all SIX weeks instead of FOUR weeks. Most other Western churches, Rome included, start the fourth Sunday before Christmas, which means Advent ranges from three weeks and a day to a whole four weeks.
Throw into the mix the Advent Project, which proposes a seven week Ancient Advent. Now, that is taking some liberties with the actual start of Advent, which in earlier historical documents seems to always hover around St. Martin's, and not All Saints', but the idea does borrow the Byzantine, Ambrosian, and Mozarabic emphasis on Advent as a season of preparation rather than anticipation...it just stretches the season to SEVEN weeks instead of SIX, basing the theme around the traditional antiphons used with the Magnificat at Vespers from December 16-23/24 (they omit O Virgo Virginum, else we'd have EIGHT weeks).
Today's appointed Epistle (2 Thes. 2.1-5, 13-17) reading dovetails very neatly into that seven week theme. Not only are we preparing ourselves for celebrating Jesus' birth on December 25, but we also note and prepare ourselves for Jesus appearing at the end of the age. St. Paul is very careful to tell us that the signs of Jesus' imminent arrival are anything but subtle. The believers were poised and ready for Christ to come again, and some were petrified that they missed it. St. Paul went out of his way to tell them they couldn't miss it even if they were thick as planks. The only thing that they should do is to hold firm to the tradition the Apostles gave them.
So why hold off? Frankly, God wants to wait for everybody to be born that He wants to spend with Him in eternity, and apparently as long as that's taking that's going to be a sizeable population. So let's start Advent, or pre-Advent, or getting ready for Advent, regardless of which calendar we're using, and hold fast to the Tradition of the Apostles as we await for Jesus' coming when the time is just right.
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