"That we might see the bleak midwinter of our souls": the case for an Old High Church Advent

Many thanks to The North American Anglican for publishing my essay 'Bleak Midwinter: Why we need an Old High Church Advent'.  The essay suggests that the liturgically sparse, almost bare nature of an Old High Church Advent could have continued theological significance and value.  This is particularly so when contrasted with the abundance of contemporary liturgical material which can obscure the Advent proclamation.

Against this background, the sparse nature of an Old High Church Advent could provide a vigorous alternative. The bare nature of the liturgical provision for the season in the classical Prayer Book tradition – no Proper Preface, no seasonal antiphons or canticles, no Advent Wreath prayers – echoes the winter landscape and thus with vigorous, uninterrupted voice the liturgy calls us into deep eschatological hope. We are not overwhelmed or distracted by additional material and numerous themes. Rather, like the winter landscape, we are brought to realize our entire dependence on the Lord’s Advent for life and light.

An Old High Church Advent also would allow us to take cognizance of a warning issued by Rowan Williams in an Advent sermon. The “richness of religious eros” permeating Advent, with its “beautiful, elegiac” tones, can dangerously combine with “the power of our urge to idolatry.” We need, he said, Advent in its “deeper aspect … pushing us back into the experience of Israel and Israel’s unconsoled rejection of idols”, that we may be confronted and challenged by the One who “brings our idolatry – philosophical and mythological alike – to judgement.” We need, in other words, that stark daily proclamation throughout the season of Advent: “when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty, to judge both the quick and the dead.”

The Advent collect, what one late 17th century High Church preacher termed “our incomparable Collect proper for the Season,” stands at the heart of an Old Church Advent. In many contemporary liturgies it has been relegated to merely the collect for the First Sunday of Advent, rather than the determining liturgical text of the season. Other seasonal material crowds these four short weeks. In an era when Anglican liturgy and preaching remains too influenced by the legacy of mid- and late-20th century theologies committed to an unconvincing and unsatisfying overly-realized eschatology, perhaps we do need to rediscover the Old High Church Advent, stripping away some liturgical riches that we might see the bleak midwinter of our souls, standing with the sparsest resources of our own, bare of any merits, before the refining judgement of the Advent of the Lord.