The Advent we hope for

Whenever I attend Catholic mass during Advent, as I did last weekend, I’m always struck by how it is simply assumed—how it’s a liturgical . . . no, an ontological given—that Christmas is nowhere yet in sight.

I realize that many Protestants are thought to envy Catholic liturgy and the facility with which it is “performed” by both priest and people (and I’ll admit to a little of this), but I happened to attend St. Brendan on the Second Sunday of Awkward (as the good-humored Father reminded the faithful): they were still struggling through the newly-mandated changes in the mass.

But they got, always get, Advent right — the scriptures and prayers, of course; the music, especially; and, just as important, the mood.