An Advent Calendar: Day 26 [Dec. 24]

"Now there were shepherds in that region living in the fields and keeping the night watch over their flock.

The angel of the Lord appeared to them ..., and they were struck with great fear.

The angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.

For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord.

And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”

,,,

... the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.”

So they went in haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the infant lying in the manger." 

(from Lk 1:8-16)

Caravaggio - Adoration of the Shepherds (1609)

"In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God,

and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God.

All things came to be through him,

and without him nothing came to be.

What came to be

through him was life,

and this life was the light of the human race; 

 

the light shines in the darkness,

and the darkness has not overcome it.

...

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world,

and the world came to be through him,

but the world did not know him.

He came to what was his own,

but his own people did not accept him.

But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God. ...

And the Word became flesh

and made his dwelling among us"

(from John 1: 1-14)

An Advent Calendar: Day 25

"Do not be afraid!"

"You who already possess the priceless treasure of faith,

you who are still searching for God,

and you as well who are tormented by doubt: 

...

Do not be afraid to receive Christ and to accept his authority!

...

The absolute, yet also sweet and gentle authority of the Lord answers both to the deepest depths of man, and to the highest aspirations of his intellect, will and heart. It does not speak with the language of force, but through charity and through truth.

...

Do not be afraid! Open, rather shatter open the door to Christ!

...

Do not be afraid! Christ knows ”what is inside the human heart.” Only he knows!

...

Nowadays man is often unaware of what is going on inside him, in the depths of his soul, and of his heart. And thus he often becomes unsure of the meaning of his life on earth. He is taken over by doubt, which then becomes despair. Allow, then – I beg you, I implore you, with humility and trust – allow Christ to speak to the human being. Only he has the words of life – indeed, of eternal life!

... 

God who is infinite, inscrutable and ineffable, has become near to us in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, born of the Virgin Mary in the stable at Bethlehem."

These fragments are taken from John Paul II's first public address after his election (October 1978). The call is as valid as ever; indeed, it is eternal - but perhaps it sounds even more poignant to the modern man. 

It is also a call on which we can meditate just now, the day before the Birth; when the child Christ invites us to open ourselves to him, and thus to become ready to receive him as he is: humble, poor, and vulnerable - and also the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

An Advent Calendar: Day 24

 The silence of expectation.

An Advent Calendar: Day 23

As the long-expected day is approaching, so does the clamoring of the people increase:

Veni, veni, Emmanuel! Oh come, oh come, "God-with-us" [Emmanuel]! 

And then the people continue, calling the Son by the various sacred-poetic names which the prophets of Israel have used to refer to the Expected One: oh Wisdom; Adonai (Lord); rod from Jesse's stem (lineage); key of David; Orient (the East, the place where the day rises); King of Nations. 

Veni veni, Emmanuel

captivum solve Israel,

qui gemit in exsilio,

privatus Dei Filio.

    O come, o come, Emmanuel,

    and ransom captive Israel,

    that morns in lonely exile here

    until the Son of God appear.

R: Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,

nascetur pro te Israel!

    R: Rejoice! Rejoice! O Israel,

    to thee shall come Emmanuel!

Veni, O Sapientia,

quae hic disponis omnia,

veni, viam prudentiae

ut doceas et gloriae. 

    O come, Thou Wisdom, from on high,

    and order all things far and nigh;

    to us the path of knowledge show,

    and teach us in her ways to go. R.

Veni, veni, Adonai,

qui populo in Sinai

legem dedisti vertice

in maiestate gloriae. 

    O come, o come, Thou Lord of might,

    who to thy tribes on Sinai's height

    in ancient times did give the law,

    in cloud, and majesty, and awe. R.

Veni, O Iesse virgula,

ex hostis tuos ungula,

de specu tuos tartari

educ et antro barathri. 

    O come, Thou Rod of Jesse's stem,

    from ev'ry foe deliver them

    that trust Thy mighty power to save,    

    and give them vict'ry o'er the grave. 

Veni, Clavis Davidica,

regna reclude caelica,

fac iter tutum superum,

et claude vias inferum. 

    O come, Thou Key of David, come,

    and open wide our heav'nly home,

    make safe the way that leads on high,

    that we no more have cause to sigh. R.

Veni, veni O Oriens,

solare nos adveniens,

noctis depelle nebulas,

dirasque mortis tenebras. 

    O come, Thou Dayspring from on high,

    and cheer us by thy drawing nigh;

    disperse the gloomy clouds of night

    and death's dark shadow put to flight. R.

Veni, veni, Rex Gentium,

veni, Redemptor omnium,

ut salvas tuos famulos

peccati sibi conscios. 

    O come, Desire of the nations, bind

    in one the hearts of all mankind;

    bid every strife and quarrel cease

    and fill the world with heaven's peace. R.

An Advent Calendar: Day 22

On the fourth Sunday of Advent, the fourth candle being lit, the light increases. Yet we still pray, in expectation, and supplication:

Rorate caeli desuper,

Et nubes pluant justum.

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above

And let the clouds rain the Just One.

And, with verse four of Rorate caeli, we are re-assured that God (through the advent of the Son of Man, who is the Son of God) is near, and (by now) very close to us:

Consolamini, consolamini, popule meus:

Cito veniet salus tua:

Quare maerore consumeris,

Quia innovavit te dolor?

Salvabo te, noli timere,

Ego enim sum Dominus Deus tuus,

Sanctus Israel, Redemptor tuus.

Be comforted, be comforted, my people:

Your salvation will come quickly:

Why are you consumed with grief,

Why is sorrow renewed in you?

I will save you, be not afraid,

For I am the Lord your God,

The Holy One of Israel, your Redeemer.

 

[verse four, with refrain, at 2:00]

 

 

An Advent Calendar: Day 21

"When I reached C Company lines, which were at the top of the hill, I paused and looked back at the camp, just coming into full view below me through the grey moist of early morning. ...

Here love had died between me an the army. ...

Here at the age of thirty-nine I began to be old. ...

Here my last love died. ...

So, on the morning of our move, I was entirely indifferent as to our destination. ...

I slept until my servant called me, rose wearily, dressed and shaved in silence. It was not till I reached the door that I asked the second-in-command, 'What's this place called?'

He told me and, on the instant, it was though someone had switched off the wireless, and a voice that had been bawling in my ears, incessantly, fatuously, for days beyond number, had been suddenly cut short; an immense silence followed, empty at first, but gradually, as my outraged sense regained authority, full of a multitude of sweet and natural and long-forgotten sounds - for he had spoken a name that was so familiar to me, a conjuror's name of such ancient power, that, at its mere sound, the phantoms of those haunted late years began to take flight." 

These fragments are from the Prologue to Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, and they describe his unexpected return to, or rather stumbling-upon, the place where, and around which, he had lived the highest peaks of his life: from the dizzy Spring of youth with Sebastian, to the high Summer and early Fall lived with Julia.   

And yet those days are all past, now; and Sebastian, and Lady Marchmain, and (notably) Lord Marchmain - and also, and in different ways, Cordelia - and, finally, Julia - are all gone; if not gone as persons, then gone from Charles's life. Gone - and, as explained in the beginning, his life itself seemed to have ended; his last ersatz love, of duty, of the army, dying just before the "rediscovery" of Brideshead Castle.   

And yet that "death" only constitutes the prologue to the book. What follows is a recalling of those highest peaks of life, all connected in one way or another, with Brideshead. And what will follow after those lengthy recollections, will be a return to the present and... 

But where does one go, when one has died, inside? When one's life - those eagerly-climbed peaks, and honeyed meadows - seem to have passed? When the things, the places, the people one has loved have passed - if not from life, than maybe from one's life? Can there be life, after late November - and thereafter, a future?

Sebastian was gone, seemingly lost - but one evening, while all were despairing of the situation, Lady Marchmain read to them from a Father Brown story (from G.K. Chesterton); in it, 

"Father Brown said something like 'I caught him... with an unseen hook and an invisible line which is long enough to let him wander to the ends of the world and still to bring him back with a twitch upon the thread."

And Lord Marchmain's passing became something completely different, from what could or should have been expected; and Julia's decision thereafter was sober and clear, even under all the confusion of those moments; and her life now was sober and dutiful, but probably on a path of clarity (albeit without the glamour so sought-after before). All these ends were not really "ends," were they?

So, is there life, and of what kind - after what seems like the end of one's life?

If there is, certainly it is no longer the life of naïve enthusiasm (as in that early youth), nor of high passion (as in that early adulthood). If there is hope, it is not childish - but something more mature - perhaps more sober, more dutiful, yet possessed of a deep (but on the surface invisible) clarity.

So, back in the present, and back at Brideshead, Charles Ryder walks by the beautiful fountain (now deserted, and protected by wire), and to the RC chapel. In the chapel, notwithstanding all the brutal changes and the war (and the destruction, and the passing of the world), he still finds - he yet finds -     

"a small red flame 

- a beaten-copper lamp of deplorable design, relit before the beaten-copper doors of a tabernacle; ... 

burning anew among the old stones."

The hope of youth and of early adulthood is the hope of transience, of the world; the hope that follows and surpasses the end of life is related to eternity.

And thus the hope and joy of Christmas, while celebrating with earthly joy the Birth of a child, also include in themselves the Death that is the purpose of this Birth - and also, and inevitably, and victoriously, the eternalized joy of the Resurrection that will conquer that Death - i.e. of the final victory of (eternal) life over (worldly) end of life.        

An Advent Calendar: Day 20

It all began at the beginning, when man and woman became estranged - from God, and from each other

Marc Chagall - Adam and Eve (1912)

then Abraham, the father of nations, entered into a covenant with God

Julia Stankova - The Hospitality of Abraham and Sarah (1993)

Julia Stankova - Trinity (1998)

then the chosen people were exiled, wandered, grew and flourished, went astray, and went astray some more, and were called back, and waited for the Promised One,

Marc Chagall - The Praying Jew (1923)

then an Annunciation was made to a young Jewish woman

Jay DeFeo   The Annunciation (1957-59)

and some people went on a trip to find what they have been researching, and thinking about, and expecting 

Léopold Chauveau - Les Rois Mages suivent l'étoile (1920)

after the star they've seen (so they say)

Vincent Van Gogh - La Nuit étoilée (1888)

toward Bethlehem in Judea

James D. Robertson - Béthléem près de Jérusalem (photo, 1859-60)

(and some shepherds were awoken as well, to go out)

Arthur Rothstein - Sheepherder’s Camp, Montana (photo, 1939)

to meet the One born humbly, to a young, unknown family

Watanabe Sadao - The Holy Family (1970)

And of course, the story will not end here, but let us just rest with the newborn Son - that is, let us look forward to the moment, to that meeting, when we will be able to rest with this newborn Son - and, for now, let us prepare for it - because the day is near

An Advent Calendar: Day 19

The road is long. The road is long, during Advent - toward the hoped-for Birth of the Light. And the road is long, between the last supper with the disciples, and the all-too-painful cross; and, along this road, Jesus asks his disciples, "stay awake and pray" - but they keep falling asleep. And the road seems very long, toward Emmaus - or toward Damascus - or toward Rome - or toward the New World - or toward that day about which nobody knows when it will come, albeit everybody knows that it will come, for each and for all. 

So the call remains - also as a reminder that one is not alone, on this road (because how could one "remain" with Him, were He not there already? - even if, as in Advent, not seen, but expected and hoped for and trusted to come - or to already be there). 

Bleibet hier, und wachet mit mir,

Wachet und betet.

Stay with me, and keep watch with me,

Keep watch and pray. 

 

An Advent Calendar: Day 18

“A cold coming we had of it,

Just the worst time of the year

For a journey, and such a long journey:

The ways deep and the weather sharp,

The very dead of winter.”

And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,

Lying down in the melting snow.

There were times we regretted

The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,

And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling

And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,

And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,

And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly

And the villages dirty and charging high prices:

A hard time we had of it.

At the end we preferred to travel all night,

Sleeping in snatches,

With the voices singing in our ears, saying

That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,

Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;

With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,

And three trees on the low sky,

And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.

Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,

Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,

And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.

But there was no information, and so we continued

And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon

Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,

And I would do it again, but set down

This set down

This: were we led all that way for

Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,

We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,

But had thought they were different; this Birth was

Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,

But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,

With an alien people clutching their gods.

I should be glad of another death.

                                T. S. Eliot -  Journey of the Magi

During Advent we - just like the Magi - are walking the road leading toward the Birth of the Child. A birth apparently joyous for us, and for the world - although difficult, and in difficult conditions, for that young family, then. And a Birth that, although it was "the coming of the light unto the world" (and thus, in principle, an occasion of joy), "the world [which was and is in darkness] did not know him" (except for a few people - like the Magi) - and rejected it. And so, this Birth is actually a birth unto Death. As his mother will soon learn, as well: "a sword shall pierce your very soul." And thus we learn that this newborn Child is actually destined for Death - a pierced death on the cross. And yet that Death will not be the final word, either. It will be instead the death of the "old dispensation," of the "world," as it is (i.e. in darkness) - for the sake of the triumph of the Light, of Life eternal. And yet that life eternal is only conquerable at the price of death - the death of the "old man," and of the "world as it is." And thus in order to truly acquire the meaning and immense gain of this Birth, that death of the "world" (in us) needs to take place in each of us. And, as described in T.S. Eliot's poem, this is what the Magi felt, and realized.   

An Advent Calendar: Day 17

As mentioned, sometimes behind the window of an Advent Calendar one might find a treat - like a piece of candy, or a chocolate. This is such a treat.

The video below contains two stories: one, of the family, and what they did, and why; and the other, of what was done to support them. Of these, the most poignant story is the first one.

 

 

An Advent Calendar: Day 16

The Visitation refers to Mary's visit to her cousin, Elizabeth, who had become pregnant at an advanced age, and needed help with all the preparations. What is especially attractive about this event is its ordinariness; Mary takes this trip to her cousin, while herself in the early stages of her pregnancy, simply because of very normal human needs and duties: your relatives need help, so you go to lend them a hand. And yet this ordinariness and utter humanness is also an occasion for the sacred to manifest itself, to irradiate outward; when she meets Mary, Elizabeth feels as if her own child "leaps" in her womb, and is suddenly aware of the grace that had been bestowed on Mary ("blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb"). And then the days went on, and Mary helped Elizabeth, and everybody was busy with the preparations for the birth, and for the ceremonies and celebrations that were to follow. 

What this very human (yet also sacred) event points to, is the fact that the sacred does not abolish or eliminate the human condition, but manifests itself in and through it. In fact, for most of us it is probably the path of ordinary duties and tasks - familial, because family is good; and social; and professional - that is also the path on and through which one has to live out one's sacred vocation. As Thérèse of Lisieux indicated and showed in her life, there is a "heroic" way of living out the "ordinary," simply by performing even the littlest duties and tasks in and out of charity.

And the ordinary - the most ordinary - will also characterize the context in which the Birth of the awaited Child will happen. A simple, unknown young family - a father, a mother, and a child. Ordinary, anonymous, caught in the middle of following a recently passed governmental act (of having to travel to the man's hometown, to register for the census), and trying to make do while on the road, in difficult conditions (it is probably winter, they are on the road, the wife might give birth at any moment, and they have found no place to stay overnight). One can put oneself very easily in the frantic mindset of the young father, as he is trying to figure things out and to take care of his young family, with little means, and with little help from the people around.  

Indeed, it would be a dangerous and in-human thing to try to erase and abolish the human - or, one could say, historical, immediate - dimension of the sacred events. Doing that would result in separating the sacred from our own lives, in fact - because the sacred becomes something extraordinary, "magical," otherworldly, "angelic," and thus unattainable; and thus something that can not actually concern us. But if everydayness is the place and the space where the sacred is lived out - and where we can live it out simply by giving to the ordinary a direction and a meaning that come from the Love that grounds all existence - then every day becomes a task, and an opportunity for an (imperceptible, but true) living out of the sacred.  

Domenico Ghirlandaio - Visitation (1486-90)

Jacopo Pontormo - Visitation (1528-29)

An Advent Calendar: Day 15

Third Sunday - and Gaudete Sunday

On the third Sunday of Advent the people continue to call out and to await that the skies rain down the just one:

Rorate caeli desuper,

Et nubes pluant justum.

Drop down dew, you heavens, from above

And let the clouds rain the Just One.

- and, with verse three of the hymn, they yearn for the remission of afflictions, and for the liberation that will be brought by the coming of the Just One :

Vide Domine afflictionem populi tui,

Et mitte quem missurus es:

Emitte Agnum dominatorem terrae,

De Petra deserti

Ad montem filiae Sion:

Ut auferat ipse

Jugum captivitatis nostrae.

See, O Lord, the suffering of your people,

And send the One who was to be sent:

Send forth the Lamb, the ruler of the earth,

From the Rock of the desert

To the mountain of the daughter of Zion

That the same One may carry away

The yoke of our captivity.

[verse three starts, with refrain, at 1:03]

The third Sunday of Advent, however, is also Gaudete ("Rejoice") Sunday. Just like Laetare Sunday during the Lenten period, Gaudete Sunday "interrupts" what is otherwise a period of quiet and introspective expectation, with a call to joy. This is the joy of the coming Birth of the One, which is so great, that it penetrates, as it were, through the veil of time, and reaches back into the Advent period, going against the flow of time. The Birth has not happened yet, but the event that will happen seems to irradiate it joy both forward - and backwards - in time. Gaudete Sunday is thus a burst of the Joy of the Birth, within and into the Advent period of preparation.  

And Gaudete Sunday is also a reminder that this period of restrained, quiet, partly penitential ("prepare the way") introspection does not exist for its own sake, nor is it "the final thing." Just like Lent prepares the glory of Easter, and as the painful sacrifice of Good Friday gains its completion in the eternalized joy of the Resurrection, thus Advent is also a period that has a purpose, and meaning, in something beyond itself: in the luminous Birth. But, still, there is no Arrival without Awaiting and Preparation. and the Waiting and the Preparation are all for one purpose, to make that Arrival possible. 

"To rejoice," then! - and dancing is that most human expression of rejoicing in body and spirit:

An Advent Calendar: Day 14

"I have often had a fancy for writing a romance about an English yachtsman who slightly miscalculated his course and discovered England under the impression that it was a new island in the South Seas.  ... There will probably be a general impression that the man who landed (armed to the teeth and talking by signs) to plant the British flag on that barbaric temple which turned out to be the Pavilion at Brighton, felt rather a fool. ... But if you imagine that he felt a fool, or at any rate that the sense of folly was his sole or his dominant emotion, then you have not studied with sufficient delicacy the rich romantic nature of the hero of this tale. His mistake was really a most enviable mistake; and he knew it, if he was the man I take him for. What could be more delightful than to have in the same few minutes all the fascinating terrors of going abroad combined with all the humane security of coming home again? What could be better than to have all the fun of discovering South Africa without the disgusting necessity of landing there? What could be more glorious than to brace one's self up to discover New South Wales and then realize, with a gush of happy tears, that it was really old South Wales. 

This at least seems to me the main problem for philosophers, and is in a manner the main problem of this book. How can we contrive to be at once astonished at the world and yet at home in it? How can this queer cosmic town, with its many-legged citizens, with its monstrous and ancient lamps, how can this world give us at once the fascination of a strange town and the comfort and honour of being our own town?

... [In this book] I wish to set forth my faith as particularly answering this double spiritual need, the need for that mixture of the familiar and the unfamiliar which Christendom has rightly named romance. ... The thing I do not propose to prove, the thing I propose to take as common ground between myself and any average reader, is this desirability of an active and imaginative life, picturesque and full of a poetical curiosity, a life such as western man at any rate always seems to have desired. .... [And] nearly all people I have ever met in this western society in which I live would agree to the general proposition that we need this life of practical romance; the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. It is THIS achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in these pages.

But I have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a yacht, who discovered England. For I am that man in a yacht. I discovered England. ... I am the man who with the utmost daring discovered what had been discovered before. ... [F]or this book explains how I fancied I was the first to set foot in Brighton and then found I was the last. It recounts my elephantine adventures in pursuit of the obvious. ... I am the fool of this story, and no rebel shall hurl me from my throne. I freely confess all the idiotic ambitions of the end of the nineteenth century. I did, like all other solemn little boys, try to be in advance of the age. Like them I tried to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth. And I found that I was eighteen hundred years behind it. I did strain my voice with a painfully juvenile exaggeration in uttering my truths. And I was punished in the fittest and funniest way, for I have kept my truths: but I have discovered, not that they were not truths, but simply that they were not mine. When I fancied that I stood alone I was really in the ridiculous position of being backed up by all Christendom. It may be, Heaven forgive me, that I did try to be original; but I only succeeded in inventing all by myself an inferior copy of the existing traditions of civilized religion. The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy [the right faith]."

This is a fragment from G.K. Chesterton's famous introduction to his remarkable and fascinating book, Orthodoxy. It relates to the Advent path in many ways; for one, because Advent, just like any other season of the liturgical year, or any recurring feast, is an attempt and opportunity to "rediscover" the familiar, to find again the strange and the surprising in what we thought we knew so well, to be shocked anew by what we are tempted to take for granted. 

And what makes the surprise, the shock, the (re)discovery possible, is the fact that the truth, while never-changing, is ever-fresh, and ever-young - it is alive, and is life. While error, while always seemingly new and attractive and diverse, always turns out to be, at the end of the day, repetitive, the same, same old same old error - and rooted in un-living, and ultimately dead. 

One, then, is the renewed promise of romance and hope (and, as Chesterton mentioned, who does not need that?); while the other always turns out to be prosaic everydayness and mediocrity - and with the solidity and duration of dust.  

 

An Advent Calendar: Day 13

It is the "refrain" of this period of Advent, isn't it? - the darkness, the obscurity, inner and outer; and us going through it, guided only by the frail, apparently inconsequential (yet ultimately victorious), trembling light of faith - and of a barely daring (yet thirst-quenching) hope.

"Dans nos obscurités

Allume le feu qui ne s'éteint jamais."

"Within our darkest night

You kindle the fire that never dies away."

 

or, in another translation

"In our obscurities 

Kindle the light that will never be extinguished." 

 

An Advent Calendar: Day 12

"Comfort, give comfort to my people,

says your God.

Speak to the heart of Jerusalem, and proclaim to her

that her servitude has ended
...

In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord!

Make straight in the wasteland a highway for our God!

Every valley shall be lifted up,

every mountain and hill made low;

The rugged land shall be a plain,

the rough country, a broad valley.

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed"

These are the words of one of the prophets of Israel, Isaiah. Who were these "prophets"? Quite simply, they were people who, often against their will, followed the irresistible call to speak out to the chosen people, and to convey to them - to remind them of - "the truth;" which often meant pointing out how they have strayed from the path of truth - from God. The "prophets," therefore, by being mouthpieces of this inner truth, acted as the conscience of the people of Israel - along the long road to, and awaiting of, the Messiah.  

The so-called "Old Testament" is the collection of historical, prophetic, legislative, philosophical and poetic texts that (overall) expresses the story of the relationship between the twelve tribes of Israel, and the God of the universe with whom they had entered into a covenant (thus becoming His "chosen people"). This relationship was not static, however, but happened in time, and was thus historical, and had a direction; it was in fact the historical-spiritual road that Israel followed, through history, toward the goal (which was the advent of the Messiah who would remake and redeem Israel - and everything else).

This is why the "New Testament" (which is made of narratives and of letters that cover the birth, life, death and resurrection of the Messiah, and then the beginnings of the community of those who will follow him) only makes sense if one truly understands that it is the fulfilment of that long road of Israel (covered in the "Old Testament").

The words of the prophets, therefore, while addressing the people of Israel at a particular historical moment (as described in the Old Testament), also connect with and talk about the events of the like of Christ (described in the "New Testament"). And this is why the narratives of the "evangelists" (the four writers who tell the story of the life of Christ in the New Testament) are replete with references to, and quotes from, the "Old Testament." 

Isaiah's words, mentioned above, are thus quoted by several of the evangelists, in connection with the mission and work of John the Baptist; as in Luke, who talks about how 

"during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert. He went throughout the whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: 'A voice of one crying out in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." 

This is said by Luke in connection with John the Baptist, whose public activity took place just before Jesus of Nazareth began his public work - and whose mission (John's) was to prepare that public mission of Christ, by asking the people to get ready for it, internally - to make ready their souls to receive (the words of) the Christ.         

And the same words from Isaiah are also read during the period of Advent. Once again, it seems, we are like the people of Israel, grasping through the darkness of time, in expectation of the advent of the Messiah, an expectation that is guided by faith and hope. 

At the same time, we also have the benefit of hindsight (because we have the New Testament) - and thus we can look at, and understand, the Birth of Christ from the perspective of what happened thereafter: his life, words, death and resurrection. The Birth of Christ is thus, for us, imbued with meanings both from the Old and from the New Testament. We are thus addressed both by the prophets of old (Isaiah), and by the voice calling in the desert (John); their message being, essentially, the same - that (contrary to expectations) the arrival of the Messiah, while a visible event, in the shape of the birth of a child, will only become understandable and accessible as an internal event. Because he will not be born to become the ruler of any worldly, visible kingdom - but of a spiritual kingdom, the kingdom of the truth - the Kingdom of God. 

Accordingly, preparing to receive this "king," although expressed by the prophets through "external images" - mountain, road, valley - is actually a matter of inner preparations,. Of making straight the crooked path, levelling the mountains, of filling up the valleys - of our souls, within our hearts. Thus the only way to access and make sense of the birth of the Messiah, of this strange child who is supposed to be King  - is by readying for him the realm that he truly comes to rule - that is, our souls. Because it is there - in the inner realm - that the spiritual kingdom for which Christ came, to be its king - is to be established. 

These prophets, therefore, old and new, are the voices of conscience for us, as well - just like they were that for the people of Israel, and for the contemporaries of Christ; reminding us unceasingly of the truth, and of our straying from that path of truth - and calling us "to prepare." And this is the meaning of Advent - to be a period, or opportunity, for that necessary inner preparation - without which the Birth celebrated at Christmas remains only an external, passing event.

An Advent Calendar: Day 11

The three "magi," or "wise men," or "kings from the Orient," who "followed the star" to find the Christ child in Bethlehem, symbolize - and factually represent - the "pagan" (i.e. non-Jewish) world's search for the truth, which led them to the same end, or result, as the chosen people's expectation of their Messiah. "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," will say later the adult Christ; and, just like the mono-theistic God of Israel was not actually a god of a people, like the many other polytheistic gods, but, while choosing a people for himself (Israel), was acknowledged even by them as the one God of the entire universe, and the Creator of all that is; so the Christ, later called the Son of God, while born in a marginal province, does not represent a "provincial," or "particular" answer to the quest for the truth - but is the Truth. The Truth, as in the answer to the quests of all the true philosophers ("the lovers of Wisdom") and of all the righteous people no matter the time (BC or AD) or place in which they lived. 

The "three wise men," therefore, who will bring gifts and will adore the newborn Child (the Truth), are a symbolic and also factual accomplishment of the multimillenial quest for truth of humankind itself. Our own Advent, therefore, harkens back to the journey of these three men, which they endeavored guided by the frail light of human reason and knowledge - and of the "star." And yet their pursuit was rewarded in an extraordinary fashion - as they became part of the very, very small society of those who first had a glimpse at, and access to, the newborn Truth. It is worth thinking, therefore, at their journey, as we endeavor our own Advent journey; their journey which, while supported by human reason and knowledge, was most probably pursued in constant incertitude, and thus was in fact led by hope (since they could not know if their endeavor was not completely futile), and by a kind of faith. 

Giorgione - The Three Philosophers (1508-09)

Gislebertus - Dream of the Magi (1120-30)

Sassetta - The Journey of the Magi (c.1435)

       

An Advent Calendar: Day 10

Sometimes the accustomed, oft-repeated words lose some of their poignancy, of their edge; it is a natural and very human process, no matter how beautiful these words might have been, in their original form and meaning. In such moments, though, perhaps a rephrasing, a re-expression that goes directly to the lived, everyday experience (instead of the metaphor) is one of the paths to follow, in order to regain that original freshness of meaning. 

The much beloved song, "Ave Maria" - more precisely, "Schubert's Ave Maria" - is in fact an adaptation of a piece written by Franz Schubert, as part of his seven song suite that was based on Walter Scott's poem, The Lady of the Lake. Thus, what we now know as "Schubert's Ave Maria" is an adaptation of "Ellen's Third Song" from said suite; a song which, in its original as well, is a prayer to Mary; but whose Scottian lyrics were replaced with the words of the traditional "Hail Mary" ("full of grace...") prayer. Beautiful music, Schubert's composition - and beautiful words, of the traditional prayer... but by now this is a song so often sung - and sung, more often than not, unsubtly, and "for effect" (relying on a given, guaranteed effect), that I wonder if its real beauty and content have not been obscured by now (at least a bit) for many of us. It is like Leonardo's Mona Lisa or The Last Supper; everybody knows these objects, and that they are supposed to be "important" and "beautiful;" so much so that by now their "fame" and "radiated image" have in fact obscured (for most viewers) the direct access to, and encounter with, the artistic object itself. 

While I do not think that that is necessarily the case with the "Hail Mary" prayer itself (although that, too, can happen, of course), it certainly is when it comes to the song, to "Schubert's Ave Maria". Especially since, as said, most of the interpretations that we usually hear are, at the end of the day, unsubtle, inattentive, hurried; they always remain superficial, because they rely mostly on the superficial and guaranteed effect that this song will have on the listeners. Sort of a "greatest hit" syndrome. 

It is in this context, then, that I was so pleasantly surprised by, and taken with, Jessye Norman's interpretation of the original "Ellen's Third Song" (which, as said, is a Marian prayer, as well)  - a performance that I found so refreshing: fresh both with artistic beauty, and with meaning. And this has to do, on the one hand, with Ms. Norman's interpretation, which enthralls one with the care and close attention given to each line, vibrato, emphasis and intensification - and to the clear pronunciation of the German words, as well. Because, yes, the lyrics also contribute to the effect - lyrics which are, in fact, the very earthly, grounded prayer of (what sounds like) an ordinary girl.

For example:

"Listen to a maiden’s entreaty

... We shall sleep safely until morning,

however cruel men may be."  etc.

Not very high-minded, not very metaphorical, but immediate and genuine-sounding, and therefore persuasive; these are the words that any girl might or could say, as her evening prayer, isn't it? 

And these two factors - the attentive and delicate musical performance, and the accessible, immediate, and thus fresh anew words, contribute to making "Schubert's Ave Maria" song that we (think we) know so well, fresh again - with reinvigorated meaning (because what is Ave Maria if not the simple evening prayer of a simple man), and with rediscovered admiration for the subtle beauty of the music.   

Lyrics [German / English]:

Ellens Gesang III

Ave Maria! Jungfrau mild,

Erhöre einer Jungfrau Flehen,

Aus diesem Felsen starr und wild

Soll mein Gebet zu dir hinwehen.

Wir schlafen sicher bis zum Morgen,

Ob Menschen noch so grausam sind.

O Jungfrau, sieh der Jungfrau Sorgen,

O Mutter, hör ein bittend Kind!

Ave Maria!

Ave Maria! Unbefleckt!

Wenn wir auf diesen Fels hinsinken

Zum Schlaf, und uns dein Schutz bedeckt

Wird weich der harte Fels uns dünken.

Du lächelst, Rosendüfte wehen

In dieser dumpfen Felsenkluft,

O Mutter, höre Kindes Flehen,

O Jungfrau, eine Jungfrau ruft!

Ave Maria!

Ave Maria! Reine Magd!

Der Erde und der Luft Dämonen,

Von deines Auges Huld verjagt,

Sie können hier nicht bei uns wohnen.

Wir woll’n uns still dem Schicksal beugen,

Da uns dein heil’ger Trost anweht;

Der Jungfrau wolle hold dich neigen,

Dem Kind, das für den Vater fleht.

Ave Maria!

Ellen's Song III

Ave Maria! Maiden mild!

Listen to a maiden’s entreaty

from this wild unyielding rock

my prayer shall be wafted to you.

We shall sleep safely until morning,

however cruel men may be.

O Maiden, behold a maiden’s cares,

O Mother, hear a suppliant child!

Ave Maria!

Ave Maria! Undefiled!

When we sink down upon this rock

to sleep, and your protection hovers over us,

the hard rock shall seem soft to us.

You smile, and the fragrance of roses

wafts through this musty cavern.

O Mother, hear a suppliant child,

O Maiden, a maiden cries to you!

Ave Maria!

Ave Maria! Purest Maiden!

Demons of the earth and air,

banished by the grace of your gaze,

cannot dwell with us here.

Let us silently bow to our fate,

since your holy comfort touches us;

incline in grace to a maiden,

to a child that prays for its father.

Ave Maria!

 

* Today, December 8, being also the feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.             

An Advent Calendar: Day 9

As mentioned before, behind the windows of a typical Advent calendar one might find, depending on the type of calendar, perhaps a holy card, perhaps a quote, and perhaps a treat  - like a piece of chocolate. 

This is chocolate. 

A plethora of sources and influences intersect in Derek Trucks' (masterful) slide guitar stylings; from, obviously, the blues, to soul, to R&B. to gospel etc. The interrupted wailing, so human voice-like, as it shouts and cries out, and the crescendo and appasionato nature of this fragment, make it all so gospel-like, or gospel-reminiscent.

The full song, "Midnight in Harlem," from another performance by the Tedeschi Trucks Band, can be found (for example) here.    

An Advent Calendar: Day 8

As indicated on Day 1, Rorate Caeli is a traditional chant sung on each of the Sundays of Advent, one verse at a time. Rorate becomes thus a refrain that accompanies us, and marks the main stops, along the road of Advent, each verse deepening our understanding and living out of its meaning, and getting us closer to the awaited goal. This is similar to how on each Sunday a new candle is lit on the Advent wreath, signifying (among others) the modest, incremental, but very real increase of "the light;" that, while we are still walking through the darkness of the night, we are (through faith, and not by sight) approaching the arrival of the Light of the world.  

Second Sunday of Advent

Refrain:

Rorate caeli desuper,

Et nubes pluant justum.

Drop down dew, you heavens, from above

And let the clouds rain the Just One.

 

Verse Two:

Peccavimus, et facti sumus

Tamquam immundus nos,

Et cecidimus quasi folium universi:

Et iniquitates nostrae

Quasi ventus abstulerunt nos:

Abscondisti faciem tuam a nobis,

Et allisisti nos

In manu iniquitatis nostrae.

We have sinned, and we are made

Like unto our uncleanness,

And we have all fallen like a leaf:

And our iniquities

Have carried us away like the wind.

You have hidden your face from us

And you have crushed us

In the hand of our iniquity.

[Verse Two begins at 1:18]

An Advent Calendar: Day 7

 "One dark night,

fired with love's urgent longings ...

I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled. ...

 

On that glad night ...

with no other light or guide

than the one that burned in my heart.

 

This guided me

more surely than the light of noon

to where he was awaiting me

- him I knew so well - ...

 

O guiding night!

O night more lovely than the dawn!

O night that has united 

the Lover with his beloved,

transforming the beloved in her Lover."

 

This is a fragment from the mystical poetry of John of the Cross (1542-1591); more precisely, from his famous poem, The Dark Night. John of the Cross' poetry is a powerful (and, of course, lyrical) expression of his spirituality (or spiritual path), which is commonly associated with the spiritual experience of the so-called "dark night of the faith" (among other things).

More simply, though, and perhaps more immediately, the poem quoted above can be read as a poignant expression of the nature of faith itself - faith, which is nothing else but one's answer to the irresistible (and yet often resisted) call of Love, of the Lover, of the One who loved us first. And, while following this call is as "going through a dark night," faith being the only - unseen yet reliable - light that guides us, this is nonetheless the path that takes one to the joy of man's desire - the already beloved, to the Lover.   

An Advent Calendar: Day 6

 

Claude Lorrain, Landscape with Rest in Flight to Egypt (1647)

What I like about this picture (zoomable version here) is the inconspicuousness of the (young) holy family, almost lost (seemingly) amidst the immensity of the landscape, and (apparently) obscured by the busy-ness of daily life depicted in the foreground. Indeed, one might have to read the title of the painting, first, in order to realize its "subject" (inverted commas, because Claude Lorrain was, first and foremost, a landscape painter). 

It takes attention, then, and a certain kind of "tuning," to observe and to pay attention to the element of the landscape whose importance actually surpasses that of everything else in the picture - notwithstanding what our eyes might tell us, initially. 

And yet the rest of the picture remains beautiful, and the everyday scene remains fascinating. And yet they all receive a different meaning, once the horizon of the painting is re-centered (not visually, but in our understanding) around this new focal point (which is interior, not exterior). 

However, this inversion of meaning(s) is up to the "reader," to the one who engages with the scene. In this duality - natural beauty and daily business vs. the spiritual reality in its humble guise - the choice is always with the subject who engages this complex reality..     

An Advent Calendar: Day 5

"The wisdom of the world is this. To say, There is 
No other wisdom but to gulp what time can give.
    To guard no inward vision winged with mysteries;
    To hear no voices haunt the hurrying hours we live;
    To keep no faith with ghostly friends; never to know
    Vigils of sorrow crowned when loveless passions fade...
From wisdom such as this to find my gloom I go,
Companioned by those powers who keep me unafraid."

This is a poem by Siegfried Sassoon, one of those famous WWI poets. The First World War, where the flower of England  - and of the other countries - went, carried on the wings of illusions, and perished - or came back utterly changed. And what resulted from this experience was either the swinging twenties, with the insatiable drive to gulp down all of the ephemerality of life; or, on the other hand, perhaps a renewed understanding of the meaning of one's time, of the time given to us (see above). Indeed, in those miserable trenches, in frozen mud, surviving day after day of monotonous deathly dread, one was faced with brutal immediacy with the question about the end (or, what Thomas More and many others in the tradition called "the four last things"). More simply put; one was inevitably and physically faced with the need to look at one's life "from the end backwards," and of re-valuing and re-evaluating it from that perspective: how one has lived, and how one lives. And, if not right then and there in the trenches, where one's main duty and worry was survival, then thereafter, or in a time of quiet. 

As indicated in the poem, what results from such a glance backwards from the end is an apparently paradoxical conclusion. That hanging on in despair to the perishable fruits of the fleeing moment is actually the recipe of sorrow; and that the hanging on to the truths that transcend the immediate minute is the path of everlasting hope.

An Advent Calendar: Day 4

"London. ... Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth. ... Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snowflakes—gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another's umbrellas in a general infection of ill temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if this day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. ... Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. ... Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon and hanging in the misty clouds.

Gas looming through the fog in divers places in the streets, much as the sun may, from the spongey fields, be seen to loom by husbandman and ploughboy. Most of the shops lighted two hours before their time—as the gas seems to know, for it has a haggard and unwilling look. ...

On such an afternoon, if ever, ..."

This fragment from Charles Dickens' Bleak House gives us a glimpse (foggy, muddy, half-perceptible) of nineteenth-century London, more specifically of a November in nineteenth-century London. Things are as if half-seen, dark, and ill-tempered. But must this be nineteenth-century London? Could this not be any-century any-city, and any other November of inner-outer gloom? Could this not be B.C., as much as A.D.? Are we all - them, in that London; us, today; and any-November, in any-place - are we all not equally in the same desperate need for a permanent dissipation of the gloom, and for the arrival (advent) of a lasting light? Plus ça change... the more it changes, the more it stays the same; the same state, this natural state, the human condition, and its deep and indelible need for a change, a transformation, that is not transitory and impermanent, no longer just socio-political or economic - but existential, everlasting, and definitive. 

Advent is a time of expectation during which we can become again aware of this deep and fundamental human need and longing... by realizing again the contrast between the ever-November of any place and any moment in human history, and the coming Nativity of the everlasting Light that we all desire. 

An Advent Calendar: Day 3

The image featured today, of the "Virgin and Child with St Catherine and St Barbara" (1520-25), painted by the so-called Master of the Holy Blood, might be somewhat inappropriate for the Advent season that we are marking (as it depicts the Virgin with the already-born Child). However, it might also be useful for other purposes, of deepening our understanding of the Advent season that we are going through. 

Just like the other "seasons" of the liturgical year, the Advent season slices up the astronomical (cosmic, calendar) year into sections which hearken back to and re-present (i.e. make present again) key moments or periods from salvation history (the history of the relationship of God with his people, with mankind). By doing that, they transport us into that moment of salvation history, and elevate us to a different plane of meaning. This is how, as we mentioned, the Advent that we live through each year is a re-living of the period of expectation that Israel itself, and mankind itself, experienced and lived through, before and leading up to, the birth of the Son of Man.   

Today's painting, then, is a good illustration of the same mechanisms and connections, of the same plays with different kinds of "time" and meanings.

While painted in the sixteenth century, this triptych depicts interactions and relationships that span fifteen hundred years. At the center of the frame is the Virgin and the Child (first century), adored (and physically touched) by St Catherine (fourteenth century) and St Barbara (third century, Byzantine). On the side wings of the triptych, the two donors (who paid for the making of this painting, and thus contemporary - from the sixteenth century) are depicted, each of them being supported by their patron saint (St Joachim, by tradition the father of the Virgin, and thus first century) and St Judocus (seventh century). In the background, other scenes from salvation history or from the lives of these saints are depicted, spanning various centuries of cosmic time. 

And yet, no matter this crisscrossing through various moments and periods of historical time  the story depicted is coherent, as it all takes place in the extratemporal "now," in the everlasting "present," of eternity. The eternity of God, which is also the eternity of faith. 

But let us return again to the painting, and notice that the buildings and habitations depicted are all contemporary (i.e. sixteenth century); in fact, there might even be a Christian church (!) on the hill to the left (which would be highly incongruous with a historical depiction of the infant Jesus and of his Mother). Continuing with this temporally-rooted examination, one will also notice that all the characters, while belonging to different eras and culture (and perhaps excluding the Virgin and the Child), are dressed in "contemporary" fashion - in the fashion of the time (sixteenth century), and of the place (Northern Europe - current Belgium). 

What is happening here? Surely the author was well aware of these "historical" or "cultural inconsistencies." Of course. But dressing the characters of salvation history, and of the history of the Church, in contemporary gowns, and situating them in the context of our day, of this moment, and of our surroundings, also carries a very powerful message. Namely, that we are all part of the same "story", a story that is not past, but actual and immediate; and that, notwithstanding the accidents of geographic or temporal differences, we all partake in the same human condition, and in the same sacred condition (in terms of our relationship to the eternal God). 

The danger, as Kierkegaard pointed out, and as illustrated in a recent film by Terrence Malick, rests exactly in the attempt to use temporality (historical distance) as an excuse and as protection, against facing the radical questions and provocations of salvation history: of facing the infant Jesus, of being looked in the eyes by the Christ. 

Living - truly living - the seasons of Advent is thus a means of bridging this faux gap and bypassing this temptation, as it puts us right in the middle of the great questions, and of the great invitation: such as the question of "What is truth?", which Pilate asked, when faced with Christ; and the invitation "Venite adoremus" (oh, come let us adore him), which is the invitation of Nativity offered to us, today, just like it was offered, contemporaneously, to the magi or to the shepherds.