As Church, we have put the “waiting” back into Advent through catechetical efforts to counteract a consumer-driven Christmas season. The amount of time that is dedicated to the joyous news of the Incarnation, however, is disproportionately small in comparison to the overwhelming gracious mystery of God-among-us. The unfolding of liturgical time after Epiphany is compacted and we return swiftly to “ordinary time.” This webinar looks to popular religious practices of the season as sources for theologizing resistant hope in troubled times. The wisdom traditioned through these performative texts, often rooted in scripture, and their ways of structuring time and space before and after Christmas, offer opportunities to imagine new ways of being and acting. With eschatological and cosmological implications, these celebrations of life amidst struggle affirm the good news, and respond to the gift of the Incarnation.
