2021 ADVENT

December 22

God is behind all things, but all things hide God. Things are black, creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render her transparent. Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of the vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn,

and provide for those who grieve in Zion –

to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

Isaiah 61:1-3

December 23

So God was god of old:

A mother came to mould

Those limbs like ours which are

What must make our daystar

Much dearer to mankind;

Whose glory bare would blind

Or less would win man’s mind.

Through her we may see him

Made sweeter, not made dim,

And her hand leaves his light

Sifted to suit our sight.

Be thou then, O thou dear

Mother, my atmosphere;

My happier world, wherein

To wend and meet no sin;

Above me, round me lie

Fronting my forward eye

With sweet and scarless sky;

Stir in my ears, speak there

Of God’s love, O live air,

Of patience, penance, prayer:

World-mothering air, air wild,

Wound with thee, in thee isled,

Fold home, fast fold thy child.

             Gerard May Hopkins, “The Blessed Virgin Compared to The Air We Breathe”

Love. That was what she had that IT did not have.   Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins. Matthew 1:20-21

December 24

It was wintertime.

The wind was blowing from the plains.

And the infant was cold in the cave

On the slope of a hill.

He was warmed by the breath of an ox.

Every farmyard beast

Huddled safe in the cave;

A warm mist drifted over the manger.

On a rock afar some drowsy shepherds

Shook off the wisps of straw

And hayseed of their beds,

And sleepily gazed into the vast of night.

They saw gravestones, fences, fields,

The shafts of a cart

Deep in drifted snows,

And a sky of stars above the graveyard.

And, shyer than a watchman’s light,

One star alone

Unseen until then

Shone bright on the way to Bethlehem.

At times it rose, a haystack aflame,

Apart from God and the sky,

Like a barn set on fire,

Like a farmstead ablaze in the night.

It reared in the sky like a flaming stack

Of thatch and hay,

In the midst of Creation

Surprised by this new star in the world.

The flame grew steadily deeper, wider,

Large as a portent

Three stargazers then

Hastened to follow this marvelous light.

And all new matters of ages to come

Arose as a vision of wonder in space.

All thoughts of ages, all dreams, new worlds,

All the futures of galleries and museums,

All the games of fairies, the work of inventors,

The yule trees, and the dreams all children dream,

The tremulous glow of candles in rows,

The gold and silver of angels and globes

And the splendor of tinsel and toys under trees.

Boris Pasternak, The poems of Doctor Zhivago

The birth of Jesus made possible not just a new way of understanding life but a new way of living it. Frederick Buechner

December 25

You could more easily catch a hurricane in a shrimp net than you can understand the wild, relentless, passionate, uncompromising, pursuing love of God made present in the manger.  Brennan Manning

“Fair Sir,” said Tirian to the High King, “this is a great marvel.”

“It is the door you came through with that Calormene five minutes ago,” said Peter, smiling.

“But did I not come in out of the wood into the Stable? Whereas this seems to be a door leading from nowhere to nowhere.”

“It looks like that if you walk round it,” said Peter. “But put your eye to that place where there is a crack between two of the planks and look through” …

He looked round again and could hardly believe his eyes. There was the blue sky overhead, and grassy country spreading as far as he could see in every direction, and his new friends all round him, laughing.

“It seems, then,” said Tirian, smiling himself, “that the Stable seen from within and the Stable seen from without are two different places.”

“Yes,” said Lord Digory. “Its inside is bigger than its outside.”

“Yes,” said Queen Lucy. “In our world too, a Stable once had something inside it that was bigger than our whole world.”     C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.  John 1:14

December 26

Suddenly he rubbed his eyes in wonder, and looked and looked. It certainly was a marvelous sight. In the farthest corner of the garden was a tree quite covered with lovely white blossoms. Its branches were all golden, and silver fruit hung down from them, and underneath it stood the little boy he had loved.

Downstairs ran the Giant in great joy, and out into the garden. He hastened across the grass, and came near to the child. And when he came quite close his face grew red with anger, and he said, “Who hath dared to wound thee?” For on the palms of the child's hands were the prints of two nails, and the prints of two nails were on the little feet.

“Who hath dared to wound thee?” cried the Giant; “tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him.”

“Nay!” answered the child; “but these are the wounds of Love.”

“Who art thou?” said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, “You let me play once in your garden, today you shall come with me to my garden, which is Paradise.”   Oscar Wilde, The Selfish Giant

All things are atoned for, all things are saved by love. If I, a sinner even as you are, am tender with you and have pity on you, how much more will God. Love is such a priceless treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it.  Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love's pure light
Radiant beams from Thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth
Jesus, Lord, at Thy birth.