Every December, as the first candle is lit on the Advent wreath, a peculiar silence descends upon the sanctuary. The violet vestments appear — not the bright plum of Lent, but a deeper, more somber hue that speaks of longing rather than penitence alone. In the parish of St. Anselm in Northampton, where I served as curate for three winters, the faithful would gather in near-darkness for the first Vespers of Advent, the only light drawn from beeswax tapers and the faint glow through the east window.
A Season the World Cannot Commodify
The commercial calendar has swallowed nearly every feast. Christmas begins in September; Easter arrives in January shopfronts. Yet Advent stubbornly resists commodification. It offers nothing to sell, no gift-guide angle, no cheerful veneer — only four weeks of holy dissatisfaction that the secular mind cannot metabolize into content. The season asks one thing of us, and it is the one thing we refuse to give: patience.
The world does not need more noise dressed as devotion. It needs the silence that precedes every genuine word — the hush of the sanctuary before the Gospel is proclaimed.