The purpose of Advent is to set aside some time to prepare ourselves for a celebration of the birth of Christ. In the West, we decadent Latins, marked the season by celebrating a feast at the end, and the more disciplined Eastern Greek Christians underwent a great fast in preparation for the coming of Christ. In a sense this dichotomy of feasting and fasting well marks what … [Read more...]
Advent & Christmas Mythbusting: Why Dec. 25th?
The first season of the Church Year in the Liturgical Calendar is Advent. Perhaps the biggest controversy of late regarding this season in the pop culture of the Anglo-sphere has been the date of Christmas. In the days of the Early Church in Britain, the Venerable Bede recorded that the Church catholic almost schismed over the date of Easter, so it's not an unusual … [Read more...]
Childermas / Feast of the Holy Innocents
St. Stephen is called the protomartyr, meaning first martyr, but today's feast day seems to call that into question.I first read about today's feast day in Charles Dicken's "Hard Times" (which I only got to about p. 10 in... but I'm still doing good in that course) it's today (according to my Liturgy of the Hours book), and I found it a fascinating feast.It is in commemoration … [Read more...]
Necessity of Sacrament to Word
Today I was at my parents Baptist church/ecclessial community, and the sermon was good. An old fashioned pietistic/wesleyan call to repent sin, accept Christ into your heart, and put you're life under his lordship. They had salvation in three steps (as all good Evangelicals know - you have to have the 3 point sermon), and they were called the ABCs of salvation. While the … [Read more...]