Listen for the footsteps
As always, Fr. Peter John Cameron gives us a gem:
Father Alfred Delp, the heroic German Jesuit who was executed in 1945 for his resistance to the Nazi regime, wrote this:
Oh, if people know nothing about the promises anymore, if they only experience the four walls and the prison windows of their gray days, and no longer perceive the quiet footsteps of the announcing angels, if the angel’s murmured word does not simultaneously shake us to the depths and lift up our souls–then it is over for us. Then we are living wasted time, and we are dead, long before they do anything to us.
This Advent is the perfect occasion to take account of all the walls, and prison windows, and gray days that we let define our lives. There are quiet footsteps and murmured words of announcing angles coming our way, too, to remind us of God’s awesome promises.
Can one fall in love with a season?
Advent
Can one fall in love with a season?
My affection for Advent runs high
as we light the candles on the wreath,
track the trail of the Baptist,
listen to the growing darkness
for the silent music of grace.
The reason for my love for the season
is its three-fold invitation:
speak tenderly—for we are all in exile;
wait patiently—for Dawn is near;
live simply—a locust or two will do.
–Bishop Robert Morneau
Our whole life is Advent
By surprise
Another treat of a poem from Jan Richardson:
For Joy
You can prepare
but still
it will come to you
by surprise
crossing through your doorway
calling your name in greeting
turning like a child
who quickens suddenly
within you
it will astonish you
how wide your heart
will open
in welcome
for the joy
that finds you
so ready
and still so
unprepared.
– Jan Richardson
“Let it penetrate your heart”
Always good to remember . . .
On this great gift of the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I can’t help but post Mary’s beautiful words to Juan Diego, words that she speaks to each one of us:
“Listen, and let it penetrate your heart, my dear little son; do not be troubled or weighted down with grief. Do not fear any illness or vexation, anxiety or pain. Am I not here who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not your fountain of life? Are you not in the folds of my mantle? In the crossing of my arms? Is there anything else you need?”
“Let it penetrate your heart.”
Awaiting His Arrival: From Shadow to Light
photo by Josh Scholten
…the rising sun will come to us from heaven
to shine on those living in darkness
and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the path of peace.
~Luke 1:78-79
…yea thou art now
Thy Maker’s maker, and thy Father’s mother;
Thou hast light in dark, and shutst in little room,
Immensity cloistered in thy dear womb.
~John Donne
Prepare
And another beautiful Advent poem by Jan Richardson:
Prepare
Strange how one word
will so hollow you out.
But this word
has been in the wilderness
for months.
Years.
This word is what remained
after everything else
was worn away
by sand and stone.
It is what withstood
the glaring of sun by day,
the weeping loneliness of
the moon at night.
Now it comes to you
racing out of the wild
eyes blazing
and waving its arms,
its voice ragged with desert
but piercing and loud
as it speaks itself
again and again.
You can see her artwork and read the rest here.
The Advent Door
Stumbled upon this beautiful Advent poem:
Blessing the Door
First let us say
Copyright Jan Richardson
a blessing
upon all who have
entered here before
us.
You can see the sign
of their passage
by the worn place
on the doorframe
as they walked through,
the smooth sill
of the threshold
where they crossed.
Press your ear
to the door
for a moment before
you enter
and you will hear
their voices murmuring
words you cannot
quite make out
but know
are full of welcome.
On the other side
these ones who wait –
for you,
if you do not
know by now –
understand what
a blessing can do
how it appears like
nothing you expected
how it arrives as
visitor,
outrageous invitation,
child;
how it takes the form
of angel
or dream;
how it comes
in words like
How can this be?
and
lifted up the lowly:
how it sounds like
in the wilderness
prepare the way.
Those who wait
for you know
how the mark of
a true blessing
is that it will take you
where you did not
think to go.
Once through this door
there will be more:
more doors
more blessings
more who watch and
wait for you
but here
at this door of
beginning
the blessings cannot
be said without you
So lay your palm
against the frame
that those before you
touched
place your feet
where others paused in this entryway.
Say the thing that
you most need
and the door will
open wide.
And by this word
the door is blessed
and by this word
the blessing is begun
from which
door by door
all the rest
will come.
– Jan Richardson, from Through the Advent Door: Entering a Contemplative Christmas.
Advent . . . and bacon!
Love this post from Bill Donaghy over at The Heart of Things:
Bacon and the Glorious Subterfuge of Christmas
After Mass yesterday, which inaugurated the First Sunday of Advent, we took the family (and me dear ole’ Da who’s visiting from Maine) to a fairly new breakfast venue in town called The Bacon Press. They had an incredible array of bacon themed and bacon saturated fare, and needless to say, I felt as if I were still participating in the afterglow of the Heavenly Banquet, yeah, as if the source of all grace flowing from the altar at St. Patrick’s had indeed perchance sent a little trickle of glory into said establishment. If anyone is scandalized by what I just wrote I apolo… no, you have not yet tasted bacon.
I believe the Jews were kept from eating pork not because it was evil, but lo, because they could not yet withstand the wonder of bacon until the Messianic age, when bacon’s light would be set properly in its place as a secondary good, i.e. “You have a greater than bacon here.” – Matthew 12:41b
During breakfast, as I was enjoying some pancake-battered, deep-fried bacon with my beautiful wife and children, and me dear ole’ Da who’s visiting from Maine, himself so wrapt in the glory of bacon that he rose from table and shared the idea with the general manager that “instead of bagels you could have ‘bacels’ which would be bagels with bacon in them”, and as if it could get any better than all of this, Johnny Mathis soared through the restaurant radio singing “O Come Let Us Adore Him.” Here’s a sampling of the lyrics that I’m sure you’ve all been hearing in your local neighborhood Walmart, Targét, CVS, Tim Horton’s, etc.
O come all ye faithful
Joyful and triumphant…
Come and behold Him
Born the King of angels
O come let us adore Him
Joyful and triumphant…
Come and behold Him
Born the King of angels
O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore Him
O come let us adore Him
Christ the Lord
Christ the Lord
I turned to Rebecca and had a 23 second adult conversation (which was long for us because we have three kids under 7 years old, were in a restaurant, and there was the added distraction of bacon). “How crazy is it that even in the midst of our secular culture, in our local neighborhood Walmart, Targét, CVS, Tim Horton’s, and The Bacon Press, we’re listening to Johnny Mathis soaring through the restaurant radio singing “O Come Let Us Adore Him”?
Ah, the Glorious Subterfuge of Christmas. We can run but we cannot hide. He comes. Even into Walmart, Targét, CVS, Tim Horton’s, and The Bacon Press. He comes in a thousand ways, down a million little roads bringing His Life and Love through any and every crack in the culture we leave open. So let’s not feel manipulated by the Christmas music playing in the KMart the day after Halloween, but rejoice! Jesus is in the Kmart! The Heavenly Bread lies in the tabernacle and the Heavenly Banquet is offered in our churches but in a certain sense the invitation is also in our stores, on car radios, workplaces, bus stations, everywhere at Christmas time! So come let us adore Him.
And that’s the glorious subterfuge of bacon.
