Teach Us to Number Our Days - Barbara Dee Baumgarten

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Advent calendar, and over the years, it became a household tradition. Visitors, intrigued by the calendar, invariably asked how to make it, and many urged me to put instructions in writing. This book is dedicated foremost to my husband Bill and to all the folks who inspired its origins.

      I will give you thanks for what you have done.

      —Psalm 52:9

      Around five years ago, I began to contemplate creating a permanent calendar that reflected the variable length of Advent and the season’s fixed dates. Barbara Brandeburg’s “Calendar Wall Quilt” (Cabbage Rose, 1995) spurred a flash of insight that led to the design of a fabric form complementing the desired function. My teaching others how to make the fabric calendar stimulated consistent calls for something written. My gratitude goes to all the folks who pushed and challenged me to frame in images and words my enduring affair with the season of Advent. I hope the contents of this book satisfy the need and are easy to follow.

      I am indebted and grateful to God, who has impelled and guided this journey; to St. Francis of Assisi, Martin Luther and the German Lutherans who pioneered many of the traditions of Advent; to Michael Morris, O.P., who taught me a sound approach to iconography (the study of religious symbols); to Dora Crouch and Anne Thille, whose expert and honest reading of my manuscript was invaluable; to my editor at Morehouse, Debra Farrington, whose enthusiasm kept me going and whose, along with Val Gitting’s, keen editorial perception and Christine Finnegan’s technical expertise perfected this book; to my son Bennett, who let me know when my drawings were “no good” for coloring or cutting out; and most of all, to my husband Bill, whose challenge, support and love knows no bounds!

       Chapter 1

       The Advent Calendar

      “Mom, when will it be Christmas?”

      “In a few weeks, son.”

      “Mom, how many days ‘til Christmas?”

      Sigh. “Oh, not too many. Twenty-something.”

      “Mother! When will it be Christmas?” persisted young Gerhard of Munich, Germany, tugging on his mother’s sleeve.

      Exasperated, Mrs. Lang took out a large piece of cardboard and drew twenty-four spaces to mark the days from December 1 to December 24. She added some decorations and placed a sweet in each of the twenty-four spaces. Each day, young Gerhard Lang removed one sweet to mark off the days before Christmas. The calendar successfully alleviated Gerhard’s incessant questions while increasing his excitement and understanding of the passage of time. Each year thereafter, Mrs. Lang made Gerhard a new calendar. Family and friends were intrigued by the homemade calendar and imitated it in their homes. Thus was born the twenty-four-day Advent calendar now mass-produced in assorted formats, shapes, sizes and materials worldwide.

      Humankind has, from “time immemorial,” gazed at the heavens and marked time: days by sunrise and sunset, months by the lunar cycle, and years by the solar cycle. Whatever the culture, a lunar or solar calendar was developed to relate the days to months and the months to years. The task was formidable since a year is always more than twelve months but less than thirteen.

      Again, from “time immemorial,” religious observances were connected with the cycles of the moon and sun. Christianity set its calendar by adopting and transforming observances from both the Jewish lunar calendar and the pagan solar calendar. The result is a two-cycle liturgical calendar consisting of feasts and holy days. The first cycle depends on the solar calendar and the fixed date of December 25 for the feast of the Nativity; the second hinges on the lunar calendar and the movable date for Easter Day. The Christian church year, in place by the fifth century, is a bit untidy, but its synthesis of Jewish and pagan roots rings true and has endured through the ages. Surely, God has been with humanity since “time immemorial” and prepares the hearts of all people for celebrations of God’s presence. When Jesus came, celebrations of God were illuminated by his life, not abolished.

       “As for me and my household, we will Servethe LORD,”

       —Joshua 24: 15

      The Christian year, determined by the Nativity and Paschal cycles, is as follows:

       I. Nativity

      A. Advent, a short season of preparation for the coming of Jesus, opens the liturgical year on the fourth Sunday before Christmas.

      B. Christmas, which celebrates the humble birth of Jesus, begins on December 25 and lasts for twelve days.

      C. Epiphany falls on January 6; its season ranges from four to nine Sundays, depending on the date of Easter Day. It celebrates the manifestation of God-with-us, including the arrival of the Magi, the baptism of Jesus and the Transfiguration (last Sunday after Epiphany).

      II. Pascha (Passover; hence, the Easter Season)

      A. Lent, a time of penitential preparation for baptism and new birth, opens on Ash Wednesday, forty days (minus the Sundays of Lent)before Easter.

      B. Easter Day is the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after March 21. Easter Day is never before March 22 or after April 25. The Easter season, celebrating the Resurrection and Ascension (forty days after Easter Day), lasts for fifty days.

      C. Pentecost Day, which falls on the seventh Sunday after Easter, celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit, enabling the disciples to boldly witness to the risen Christ. The long season of Pentecost, sometimes called ordinary time, begins on the first Sunday after Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and lasts from twenty-three to twenty-seven Sundays. The concluding Sunday of the liturgical year leads directly into the First Sunday of Advent by recognizing the eternal and cosmic reign of Jesus (Christ the King Sunday).

      A liturgical calendar, besides marking time, helps us to deepen our relationship with God by encouraging us to align our days with the life of Christ. This book focuses on the first season of the church year, the brief season of Advent, by developing a liturgical Advent calendar. Unlike the traditional twenty-four-day countdown calendar, this liturgically based Advent calendar follows the actual dates of the church’s Advent season and its variation of days from year to year. Like nature’s year, Advent presents its own challenge to tally its days, since the season varies from twenty-two to twenty-eight days, as shown in the tables on the next page.

      The secular calendar too often displaces Advent. As early as Halloween, “Christmas” decorations, music and enticements to buy, buy, buy begin to mask the quiet holiness of vigilance. Caught up in consumerism, we miss the signs of the coming Christ. We walk by them, we stumble over them, we fall into them, and still we do not see or understand who we are in Christ. Instead, we covet the enticing indulgences of commercialism. The Advent calendar teaches us to count our days so that we may gain a wise heart (Psalm 90:12).

       The dates for the longest possible Advent season, beginning on November 27.

       The dates for the shortest possible Advent season, beginning on December 3.

      The anticipation of Advent is a response to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The secularization of Christmas has made Advent into a cornucopia of choices and demands. It can be the most harried time of year. We are called by God to live integrated lives with God, humanity and creation. Advent counters the dis-integration of the false life with a pause—to see, hear and watch for the coming of Christ. We let go of anxiety, fears and anger and pursue trust, justice and dependence on God. Within the context of Advent, attention to the gospel can restore us to an integrated life. Through symbolizing the progression of days on the calendar;

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