Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding

Advent Sunday is always the nearest Sunday to the Feast of St Andrew, whether before or after - from 'Tables and Rules for the Moveable and Immoveable Feasts' in the BCP 1662.

Where does St Andrew's Day appear in the sanctoral? In most contemporary Anglican calendars it is the last feast of the Christian year. But not so in the Prayer Book tradition. Here St Andrew's Day is the first feast of the Christian year, the first collect, epistle and gospel we find when we turn to the saints' days.

This little practice has meaning and significance as we prepare to enter into Advent (or, in some years, when we are in the first days of Advent).

St Andrew is the one who in the Gospel of St John heeds the witness of the Baptist to the Advent of the Lord, "Behold the Lamb of God!".

In the synoptic tradition - and Matthew provides the Gospel reading for St Andrew's Day at the Holy Communion - Andrew, with Peter, James and John, "straightway", "immediately" responds to the Advent of the Lord by the Galilean Sea.

In the witness of Andrew, we see that the Lord's Advent is encountered "now in the time of this mortal life". This is to be our experience of Advent, the compelling encounter with the Lord in his first advent, present advent, and future advent, calling us to "cast away the works of darkness".

St Andrew's Day, then, orients us towards Advent as encounter, call, penitence, renewal.

This first feast day of the Prayer Book sanctoral is the gateway to Advent.

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