I have SO many Advent poems I would like to share. I just reread this one from an “art” journal that I keep, this one for Advent. I don’t remember when I discovered her poetry but she soon became a favorite. May your “long waiting light” increase and increase through this beautiful season.
Advent is a time of longing. As you long for God’s coming, consider how much more he longs for you.
Today’s Sunday poem is in memoriam of Luci Shaw, God rest her soul.
This first Sunday of Advent, I thought I would share this lovely sonnet by Hazel Littlefield Smith. Hazel was born not too far from where I was raised in Michigan and spent her last years in Ann Arbor. She and her husband were missionaries in China for thirteen years during the “reign of the War Lords”. I love this sentence from her obituary: “Mrs. Smith never lost touch with the Michigan woods she loved so dearly.” I’m not sure where I came upon this poem of hers, but it seems perfect for the beginning of Advent.
Come Soon
I set my candle where the shadows loom,
A flame of faith between the eyes of fate,
And I am waiting in the windy gloom;
O come, my Love, for it is growing late.
Small doubts on darkling wings flit here and there
Uncertainly in the grey, lingering light,
Mysterious music haunts the troubled air,
And none but you can comfort me tonight.
I wait upon the moment’s hazard now;
Is there no power can hold the darkness back
Until you come? I do not disavow
Your promised love—the one thing I most lack.
The hour is late, dear Love, come soon, come soon;
Then shall the night be lovelier than noon.
Beautiful rendering. Nothing like the voices of children.
Thanks to Emily Gibson for introducing me to this song.
“This hymn was commissioned by the Benedict XVI Institute under the patronage of James Hudon. Part of the text was set to music by the composer Frank La Rocca. The sources of the hymn are fourfold: the main verses borrow from Christina Rossetti’s stanza in the classic “In the Bleak Midwinter” and draw on the nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke’s Gospels; the poem as a whole is shaped according to the Eastern Orthodox Akathist Hymn tradition, particularly its practice of offering seven praises after a chanted prose reading; and, finally, the third chorus of praises draws on the Western litany tradition and paraphrases the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.“
You can read this beautiful hymn here.
This Sunday’s poem is one by Jessica Powers, written in 1948, an apt poem for today, usually the Feast of the Immaculate Conception but this year coinciding with the second Sunday of Advent.
Advent
I live my Advent in the womb of Mary.
And on one night when a great star swings free
from its high mooring and walks down the sky
to be the dot above the Christus i,
I shall be born of her by blessed grace.
I wait in Mary-darkness, faith’s walled place,
with hope’s expectance of nativity.
I knew for long she carried me and fed me,
guarded and loved me, though I could not see.
But only now, with inward jubilee,
I come upon earth’s most amazing knowledge:
someone is hidden in this dark with me.
~Jessica Powers, The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, p. 81.
I posted this 13 years ago. After reading this meditation the first time, I hung a star in my room as a reminder. It has moved with me over the years and still hangs in my room.
Take a moment–perhaps with a cup of tea and a lit candle–to sit quietly and read this editorial from this month’s Magnificat [December 2011] by Fr. Peter John Cameron. If you don’t have time at the moment, print it out or bookmark it to read at a time when you have the space and quiet to read it slowly. Don’t scan this quickly; it deserves the right pace to speak to your soul. And may it speak deeply to your soul . . .
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that Jesus knew and loved us each and all during his life, and gave himself up for each one of us (see 478). Which means that from the moment Christ is conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus is loving us and giving himself to us personally. He is calling to our hearts, wooing us with all his tenderness.At this very moment, the aged Simeon stands at his post in the temple… vigilant… filled with expectation… looking for Mary’s baby. Once the infant Jesus appears, no one will need to tell Simeon that this is the One he has been waiting for all his life.
For five years already a lame man has been lying by the sheep pool in Bethesda, too weak to hoist himself into the stirred up waters. Even now, Jesus begins his approach to him. It will be thirty-three years more before Christ stands beside the man, but even now he asks him the question we are all aching to hear: “Do you want to be healed?”
Any day now a mother and a father will give birth to a little girl who will grow up to acquire a bleeding disease that will baffle all doctors and afflict her for twelve years. Even now, Jesus is pitying her, healing her, and calling her “daughter.”
Who can say how long the leper has lived alone, lurking in the shadows? Yet even now something has happened that will not allow his tortured heart to give way to despair. So even now, from a distance, he starts searching the faces in every crowd, certain that some day Someone will appear to whom he will beg, “Sir, if you will to do so, you can cure me!”
At the moment, the woman destined to be the Gospel’s famous widow is a beautiful young maiden newly betrothed. She spends all her passion in preparing for her wedding – for the day she will be a bride. Yet the days of her marriage will not last long. And with the death of her husband, she will spend her life loving others with a total gift of self. Even now Jesus the Bridegroom is watching, commending her for giving all she has to live on.
Even now Bartimaeus in the abyss of his blindness is crying from his misery, “Son of David! Have pity on me!” The child born in the city of David is readying even now to restore his sight.
Even now Jesus is settling on the tree up which Zacchaeus will scurry. Even now Jesus plans to stop, and look up, and call Zacchaeus from his limb. Even now Jesus is promising him, “I mean to stay with you today.”
At this point in time, the Samaritan woman at the well has not yet married Husband Number One. Little does she know that she will have five husbands and another man besides. But even now Jesus is appealing to the thirst that is her life and promising to slake it with the gift of his very self.
Even now the mere lad Matthew hasn’t any idea about what he will be when he grows up. What leads him one ill-fated day to betray his religion, his nation, and himself in becoming a tax collector we will never know. But even now Jesus is making his way to Matthew’s tax collecting post and summoning him from his heart with the words, “Follow me.”
Even now something makes the centurion restless, uneasy. He cannot truly be himself until he professes, “This man was the Son of God!”
Just about now the little boy Peter is beginning to learn how to fish from his father. But even now Jesus sees him on the seashore and summons him to be a fisher of men. Even now Jesus is forgiving his sins and calling Peter “Rock.”
Even now Jesus is silently beckoning us all: Come to me, you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Your souls will find rest in me. I am gentle and humble of heart. Do not live in fear. I have come that you might have life and have it to the full. If anyone thirsts, let him come to me. I am the way, and the truth, and the life. I am the Bread of Life. I call you friends. I am with you always.
Even now a wondrous star has arisen in the heavens of the far-off East. Even now Magi have left all else behind, and have begun to make their way to a manger, following a path laid out by the shining star’s luster. Let us go with them.
Rev. Peter John Cameron, O.P.
Copyright Magnificat
There is no other poem more lovely for the first Sunday of Advent than this one so I am resharing it. May you know his coming to you personally during this season.
I was so struck by this by Sally Clarkson from her new book, Well Lived. I have sensed the Lord wanting me to dwell with the word “watchfulness” during Advent this year. And this piece of writing spoke into that, especially since moving to a new house that is full of light (as compared to my past bedroom that looked out on a brick wall).
“Each year I determine several themes I will choose for the focus of my heart’s eyes. This year I chose to look for light, to observe it, to note its beauty. When in my Colorado home I would notice the sunrise shimmering int he aspen trees near my front window. In Oxford, I walk a short pathway next to my canal most nights to see the sunset playing through the woods and shining on the water. And I remind myself, Jesus is the light. He dances in all my places; He wants to bring the light of His truth to my heart to give hope to my weary days. Light reflects the essence of Christ to me, so I notice light to remind me He is everywhere.
“Because of my determination to look for light, I have noticed it casting shadows upon trees and the leaves seeming to lean forward to catch a glimmer of sunlight. I pay attention to sunrises and sunsets. I look for light because He is light, and it causes me to worship Him for bringing me out of darkness. Honestly, because I made this commitment, light has captured my attention many times a day; each instance whispers to my heart, ‘He is here; you are not alone.'”
Witnesses to Hope 