One of the Great Treasures of the Church of England
ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.
The Christian year has not always begun with the First Sunday in Advent. In ancient times it began on Easter Day, a custom still observed in the great Churches of the East. By the fourth century, the West had established Christmas Day as the beginning of the liturgical year. A time of preparation for Epiphany baptisms began on St. Martin’s Day (Nov.11). This came to be known as Advent leading up to Christ’s Nativity. Nowadays it is shortened to four weeks before Christmas. In the East the five weeks of preparation for Christ’s coming begins on Nov.15th. During this period, known as Little Lent, fasting is observed. The faithful will abstain from all meat, fish, dairy, wine and oil except on certain feast days when fish, wine and oil are allowed and after preparation go to confession.
The rubric in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer directs us to say this collect daily between Advent Sunday and Christmass. Composed by Archbishop Cranmer it is in all editions of the prayer book and has become loved as one of the classic prayers. The prayer itself echoes the Epistle, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light”. The call is to awakening out of sin, ie. failure to follow the Commandmants. It reminds us that Christ came in ‘great humility’ at his birth and when he entered Jerusalem riding on a donkey, the subject of the Gospel. The message of Advent is clearly stated in both the Collect and the Epistle “now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed”; the dawn of the Second Advent is now a year nearer to each of us.
Christopher Jobson
Feature image: Cockshutt Church and Churchyard in the snow 2017, (c) Meres and Meadows.