Hooray! I love Advent! And I love being home at our church where the season is recognized in all its glory, and we don't plunge suddenly into Christmas. Purple is the order of the day, not red and green, and repentence and renewal more than celebration. Heather, tell your paster I thought of him today, as we started the service by chanting the Great Litany. I particularly like this beautiful, ancient prayer.
Is there anything one can't find on the Internet?
One of the reasons I like Advent is that, like Lent, we sing particularly good and meaningful hymns during this season. The Sequence Hymn was and exercise in sight reading (The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns), but the Communion Hymn was the glorious O Come, O Come Emmanuel, and the Recessional was Rejoice! Rejoice, Believers."
Our choir director greeting us this morning with, "It's great to see you back. Do you know we are singing today?" Fortunately, it was not a difficult piece, and it's a good thing I'd actually rehearsed the alto line a time or two, as I turned out to be the only alto present....
Dear far away, liturgy-loving children: I hope this comforts your hearts, and doesn't make you terribly homesick.
P.S. Our "for schools" prayers today included the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. :)One other thing I love about the Great Litany. It's too long for me to have memorized all the petitions, but you certainly know the responses by the time you're done, and I found they came back to me in force while attending Jonathan's and Noah's births. :)
