This Sunday marks a very important feast in the church year, as well as closing the church Year B.  We take down the green hangings which have been up so long in the Season After Pentecost.  Now is a good time to get those cleaned and steamed. Next Sunday we will find ourselves in Advent I, the birthday of the church.  Christ the King, sometimes called Feast of the Reign of Christ in some parishes, is a feast for extra care in preparation of the altar and decorations.  The best white set of vestments and hangings are brought out, touches of gold or silver are appropriate, the brass should gleam, and white flowers are particularly lovely.  Next Sunday will mark a great change as the altar once again becomes subdued, flowers are put aside until Christmas Eve.  In some parishes boxwood or plain evergreens might be seen sparingly.  The Advent wreath becomes a focal point.  Some parishes will use a “Christ Candle” of white in the center of the Advent wreath of three purple and one rose candle.  This white candle will be lit on Christmas Eve at midnight services. 

Some churches in our diocese have a cross bearing the Christus Rex in their sanctuaries.  Christ Church in Westerly has a large one in the side chapel.  Some church supply catalogues sell the figure alone or on a cross in several sizes and ready to be mounted on the wall.

The time for preparation begins for Altar Guilds all over the world: ordering candles and bobeches, writing and mailing the annual Flower Memorials letter, checking on supplies of wine and bread, placing orders at local nurseries and flower shops, polishing brass and silver, pressing the best linens, ordering incense, polishing the thurible, tidying sacristies for the busy days to come, and the many other little services performed by faithful hands year in and year out as the great Feast of the Nativity approaches.  The sweet-smelling quiet of the sacristy is a wonderful place to be at this time of year.