I shed tears of gratitude and joy that you have come round again, O Advent, to shake us from our torpor as early night comes, and the match is struck, and the message is brought home once more; that we are forever in the absence of light; it is beyond us and exterior until we make it welcome and bring it, like a lover, within. Welcome into our deepest void, welcome into the parts of us touched by human frost and stunted. Welcome, O Light, beaming glorious, into remotest apertures of our souls, rays aglow, warmth permeating where we have left old fires unattended and embers to wane, and our abysses to grow chill, and uninhabitable. Welcome light; dispelling illusion, and chasing old ghosts to rest.
With the sunset tonight, the promise is renewed; the story begins again. The beginning; quiescence, empty and void. Then movement; an annunciation; a Word -one boundless, vibrant “yes” that shakes creation; “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my savior!” Soon their will be dreams, and silent wondering, and a gathering, and a starry night rent with song. The Word Present penetrates lonely, lost humanity, and enters into the pain and fear, the tumult and whirlwind; He and sets His tent with us not merely dwelling among, but literally with us; with hunger, with the capacity for injury and doubt -with enough vulnerability to be broken- and within this espousal, everything is illuminated!
First Things editor Joseph Bottum writes “the end of advent”:
What Advent is, really, is a discipline: a way of forming anticipation and channeling it toward its goal. There’s a flicker of rose on the third Sunday—Gaudete!, that day’s Mass begins: Rejoice!—but then it’s back to the dark purple that is the mark of the season in liturgical churches. And what those somber vestments symbolize is the deeply penitential design of Advent. Nothing we can do earns us the gift of Christmas, any more than Lent earns us Easter. But a season of contrition and sacrifice prepares us to understand and feel something about just how great the gift is when at last the day itself arrives.
More than any other holiday, Christmas seems to need its setting in the church year, for without it we have a diminishment of language, a diminishment of culture, and a diminishment of imagination. The Jesse trees and the Advent calendars, St. Martin’s Fast and St. Nicholas’ Feast, Gaudete Sunday, the childless crèches, the candle wreaths, the vigil of Christmas Eve: They give a shape to the anticipation of the season. They discipline the ideas and emotions that otherwise would shake themselves to pieces, like a flywheel wobbling wilder and wilder till it finally snaps off its axle.
Read the whole thing and understand why I am inspired, this year, this Advent, this very night -O Holy Night- to keep Advent at the fore, and the World of Illusions and Easy Forgettings somewhere at bay, where I can not so easily reference it, or be so quickly distracted.
Will I be newsless? No. But I will be news, less, Advent/Liturgy, more.
Each day you and I will be in Advent -the time of coming, that which anticipates all the rest- so that (and this is my heartfelt prayer) when December 25 comes, we will not be sick of it, and the Darkness will not feel glee at our diluted light; instead we will have only just begun to hear strains of ancient song, coming closer in ever-stronger waves. Like a quickening pulse grown stable, and signaling life where it was thought lost. Our longing will only just have become satisfied, and our journey only just begun.
I have a friend whose mother, after a stroke, had very limited speech. If she wanted to wish you well, or express happiness for you, she would say “Merry Christmas!” It meant everything good, everything full of love.
As we light our first candle of Advent, let us move forward in humble adventuring, seeking out the divine “Yes” spoken from heaven and the faith-filled “yes” whispered on earth. Let us strike a match and cover our faces in prayer, that the lifting up of our hands be as an evening sacrifice, acceptable. Let us eat figs and drink wine, and work faithfully at our labor, and sweep and sing and slumber, until we gather with shepherds and kings, to meet, and to worship, and to tell what we have found.
Then, if we have only “Merry Christmas” to say for the rest of our lives, all around will understand how packed with meaning is the phrase.
Graphic thanks to Curt Jester
Related: Hidden Jewel: An Unsung Advent Hymn (H/T)
Julie makes excellent use of Fr. R.A. Knox
Deacon Greg: 40 Years Ago
Moniales: Your Light Will Come!
Mother Maria-Michael Newe: Advent; Longing for Christ
Catholic Key: Something Beautiful from the Desert of Lent
Msgr. Charles Pope: Five Advent Reflections
Top Ten: Things to Know about Advent
This is a lovely, inspiring post. Thank you.
Thank you for the reminder of Advent’s great riches. On Thanksgiving night, my neighborhood was ablaze with Christmas lights. Beautiful, yes, but all I could think was “No, not yet…”
I like the, for lack of a better word, darkness of Advent. The songs of Advent are full of longing, waiting, yearning, a sense of “not yet.” Not yet the happy carols of Christmas, not yet the bright lights and the tinsel. For now, a single candle to light the darkness. That is enough for now.
Thank you for a beautiful post about Advent. It brought me to tears, but in a good way.
Thank you for the Advent message.
Thanks for the glorious focus on our anticipatory Advent adventure…and for the lovely Loreena video. She is one of our favorites.
Blessings of the Season to you, dear Anchoress!
Msgr. Pope’s unsung Advent hymn isn’t really that unsung — it’s one of my favorites. It does generally seem to be relegated to Anglican Advent Lessons and Carols services, which is how I know it, to the Praetorius tune Puer Nobis Nascitur.
And yes, I love the very *longing* of Advent, with its eschatological overtones. We sang my all-time favorite Advent hymn today, “Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending,” to the tune we normally use for the “Tantum Ergo” — we sang it a capella, in unison, during Communion, and it was very quiet and spare, but I had to try hard not to be too teary to sing.
And now a child full of longing wants me to go out and cut holly with her for our Advent wreath . . .
[That sounds so wonderful, the "Lo, He Comes..." As usual, we sang O Come O Come which always haunts me, but then went into "People, Look East." Deplorable music around here. admin]
Well, I rather like “People, Look East,” myself, I have to admit, though maybe not in a medley with “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.” That would be a little jarring.
At home, we don’t sing “O Come, O Come” until it’s time for the O Antiphons, then we sing a verse each night, adding the ones we’ve sung on previous nights, till by the 23rd we’re singing the whole carol. I made these little O-Antiphon ornaments to hang — and I am NOT crafty, so they really are these goofy conglomerations of tracing paper and popsicle sticks and glitter glue — and we do this whole little ceremonial deal, and I get a holy rush from it, if nobody else does.
Our pastor likes to forego the processional and retiring-procession hymns during Advent and Lent, so we just do a chanted antiphon, then silence. We sang “The King Shall Come” at the offertory, then “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence,” the “Lo, He Comes,” and then the four of us women — we’re a choir of eight, currently — sang “Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming, ” also a capella. We’re a humble bunch, in terms of talent, but it was really very nice, and very solemn. Our town is having a Christmas parade and solemn-lighting-of-the-giant-courthouse-Christmas-tree this afternoon, but we’re going back for a simple sung Vespers at the same time, so will miss all that. I’m kind of sorry, but kind of not. All those parade-goers should just come to Vespers instead!
[I was writing quickly and did not make myself clear, I think; we began w/ OCOCE, and later went into People Look East...which is not horrible, but it's your basic, bouncy tune...I feel like our local churches would fall down if -heaven forbid- we had too much solemn music full of longing. I envy the music you had today! -admin]
This is a beautiful rendition of Emmanuel. And a lovely post.
There is nothing wrong with People Look East for the 3rd or 4th Sunday of Advent, but there is a clear division in Advent — the first 2 Sundays are focused on the Second Coming, while the 3rd and 4th are focused on preparing for Christmas. So The King Shall Come is perfect for the 1st Sunday, especially verse 2: Not, as of old, a little child, to bear and fight and die, but crowned with glory like the sun that lights the morning sky.
But songs like People Look East or Lo, How a Rose really should wait until later…
I would agree re “Lo, How a Rose,” except that it did more or less fit the Mass readings for yesterday, with “the branch to spring forth for David.” If only “Jeremiah ’twas foretold it . . . ” It was maybe a bit of a stretch, metaphorically, but we are a tiny choir with a limited repertoire, so we kind of have to make do with what we can do. And pairing it with “Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending” makes a nice juxtaposition, I think, of impending Nativity with impending eschatology. We probably should have done “Lo, How a Rose” first and then “Lo, He Comes,” to echo the order of the readings, actually . . .
I do love the words to “People, Look East” — the imagery’s just stunning. It would be good for Gaudete Sunday, especially. And it’s fun for caroling.
And yes, Anchoress, I figured kind of belatedly that you probably hadn’t had those two pieces of music right together, though as I was writing, I was trying to imagine how long and varied that procession must have been!