O Rex Gentium
O King of Nations
And their desired one,
Cornerstone who binds two into one --
Come, and save man
Whom You fashioned from the slime of the earth.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I'm busy getting ready for company today, so I thought I'd just give you a little music to listen to. I love this Patty Griffin song, which, despite what it says on the YouTube video, is called Kite Song. Once again, thanks to Maclin Horton for suggesting I listen to the album, Impossible Dream.

Let's have this one, too.



Okay, back to the dust! I'm sure that dust is a sign from God that we are a sinful people and deserve harsh punishment. On the other hand, all this dust is sign that I have a house and stuff to dust, so I'm sure I will be grateful once it's done.

AMDG

Visitation

O Oriens
O Rising Dawn
Radiance of eternal lightAnd Sun of Justice--
Come, enlighten those sitting in darkness
And in the shadow of death.

This is my favorite of the O Antiphons. I don't know why people don't want to be called Oriental because to me, it's a word full of mystery and beauty and Asian just sounds like a blob on a map.

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Today's gospel was the Visitation, "Who am I that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

The Virgin, weighed
with the Word of God,
comes down the road:
if only you'll shelter her.

Christmas Refrain, St. John of the Cross

AMDG.

Overshadowed

O Clavis David
O Key of David
And Scepter of the house of Israel
You open and no man dares shut,
You shut and no man dares open--
Come, deliver from the chains of prison him who sits in darkness and in the shadow of death.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This morning's reading at Mass was the Annunciation. The angel appears to Mary, blessed, favored, full of grace, and tell her that she will be the mother of the Savior of the world. 

And Mary said to the angel: How shall this be done, because I know not man? And the angel answering, said to her: The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. And therefore also the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.                         Luke 1:34-35

And then the angel comes to us, you see us over there on the left side of the picture, and he tells us that we will bear the Son of God and we are agonized, "How can this be," we say, "for we have known man. We have known him in all of his degradation, and we have cooperated with him in his degradation? And the angel tells us that nothing is impossible with God.

Jesus says to us, "Take and eat," and we say, "Amen, so be it, fiat," and the Holy Ghost comes upon us and the power of the Most High overshadows us, and the Savior of the world is born in us again. 

Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof. Say but the word and my soul shall be healed.

AMDG

Photo: Dawn Likens

The Lord is Close at Hand; Come Let Us Worship Him

O Wisdom, 
Who issued from the mouth of the Most High 
Reaching from beginning to end 
Ordering all things mightily yet tenderly-- 
Come to teach us the way of prudence.

When I was younger, it used to be very important to me to make Christmas perfect. We never had much money, but I made ornaments and stockings and decorated and did all sorts of Advent activities, and all of this was great. But one Christmas about 30 years ago something happened that changed the whole way I looked at Christmas.

One day in the week before Christmas, I was at my mother's house assembling a dollhouse, and I got a call. It's odd, but although I don't remember who called, I remember that I was surprised that this particular person was calling with the news. My best friend's 18 year old son had been killed in a motorcycle accident along with a friend of his. And I can remember that what struck me immediately was that there was going to be no way to make this Christmas perfect.

Over the next several days, I began to understand in a way I never had before how much we need Christmas, not the tree, and the carols, and presents, but the Nativity, baby Jesus in the manger. I learned how  underneath all the trappings, we yearn for a Saviour, we yearn to be saved from a world that is at times unbearable. And I learned somehow in that darkness that He really was there. Now I think of that as one of the best Christmases of my life. This quote from St. Gregory of Nyssa was in the section of the Catechism that we read today.

Sick, our nature demanded to be healed; fallen, to be raised up; dead, to rise again We had lost the possession of the good; it was necessary for it to be given back to us. Closed in the darkness, it was necessary to bring us the light; captives, we awaited a Savior; prisoners, help; slaves, a liberator. Are these things minor or insignificant? Did they not move God to descend to human nature and visit it, since humanity was in so miserable and unhappy a state?   

And so, this is what I've been thinking about during the last few days. I haven't written anything about the shootings in Connecticut and I won't. I've barely discussed them with anyone. I don't really think there's much profitable that one can say. I know, though, that because this happened, it won't be exactly the Christmas we wanted, but I know that Christmas is just what we need.

AMDG

Great post by Sally here.

Questions

Are we reed pipes? Is He waiting to live lyrically through us?
     Are we chalices? Does He ask to be sacrificed in us?
Are we nests? Does He desire of us a warm, sweet abiding in domestic life at home?

These are only come of the possible forms of virginity; each person may find some quite different form, his own secret.

Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God

The first two years I homeschooled my children, I didn't come up for air. I read some books about homeschooling, but there wasn't much out there and I didn't have the internet!!!! Of course, there wasn't anything to speak of on the internet anyway. I didn't meet many other homeschoolers, or spend any time with those I did meet. Then, I attended my first homeschool conference. The first night, I picked up a catalog from one of the vendors and stayed up a good part of the night reading that catalog, which was much more than a list of books. One article described seven different theories of homeschooling and their positive and negative aspects. When I read it, a light went on in my head--or maybe and explosion went off in my head. I realized that I had been using six of the seven methods. No wonder I was overwhelmed. So, I got it down to about three, and things were better after that--not that I was ever the world's best homeschooler.

When I read that article, I discovered a principle that helped in many areas of my life. I've made the same kind of mistakes with my prayer that I made with my teaching methods. In the past 40 years or so I've come across a lot beautiful prayers, a lot of wonderful ways to pray, a lot of inspiring saints that I would like to emulate, but try as I may, I can't do it all. Loading up my morning prayer with one great prayer after another is like trying to put a couple of dozen eggs into a pint basket. Things are going to break and get messy. Trying to work in too many different kinds of apostolates (not that I am one to put myself out much) is going to draw me away from my primary apostolate, which is my family.

Therefore, Miss Houselander's questions really help to simplify the jumble we can make of our lives. What is it that we are made of? What did God create each of us to be? A nest would make a lousy chalice. You can't make a warm, protective home in a reed. So she suggests that we occasionally step back and envision ourselves the way that we were when God created us, the shape that we had before we acquired all the things that clutter up our lives. Thankfully, the Church year sets aside times for us to do this.

Along with this discovery of who we are made to be individually, she adds this reminder of the purpose which underlies all of our lives.

     The purpose for which human beings are made is told to us briefly in the catechism. It is to know, love, and serve God in this world and to be happy with Him forever in the next.     This knowing, loving, and serving is far more intimate than that rather cold little sentence reveals to us.     The material which God has found apt for it is human nature: blood, flesh, bone, salt, water, will, intellect.     It is impossible to say too often or too strongly that human nature, body and soul together, is the material for God's will in us.

We're neither angels nor beasts. We must be constantly aware of the rift between our bodies and souls that robs us of the integrity we were originally intended to have. We're continually tempted to abandon one for the other and therefore cripple ourselves for the purpose for which we are created. It's when we surrender both body and soul to God to let Him knit the two together (and it's a sort of blasphemy that they should be two) that we can best begin to know, love, and serve Him.

AMDG

The Second Sunday of Advent~The Reed of God

EMPTINESS

That virginal quality which, for want of a better word, I call emptiness is the beginning of this contemplation.

It is not a formless emptiness, a void without meaning; on the contrary it has a shape, a form given to it by the purpose for which it is intended.

It is emptiness like the hollow in the reed, the narrow riftless emptiness which can have only one destiny: to receive the piper's breath and to utter the song that is in his heart.

It is emptiness like the hollow in the cup, shaped to receive water or wine.

It is emptiness like that of the bird's nest, built in a round warm ring to receive the little bird.

The pre-Advent emptiness of Our Lady's purposeful virginity was indeed like those three things.

She was a reed through which the Eternal Love was to be piped as a shepherd's song.          

She was the flowerlike chalice into which the purest water of humanity was to be poured, mingled with wine, changed to the crimson blood of love, and lifted up in sacrifice.

She was the warm nest rounded to the shape of humanity to receive the Divine Little Bird.

Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God

For the past seven months I had planned to write something about this passage on the first Sunday of Advent. When I took off all of Thanksgiving week, I thought surely I would find time to do it then, but I never did. Last Sunday came and went, and I just did not have time to sit down and write. Also, I wanted to take these pictures, but I just couldn't find the things I needed. So now it's past my bedtime on the second Sunday, and I have just barely begun. 

My week has been so very un-empty. I've only been home two nights out of the past eight. This is just not what I envisioned or wanted, and yet I think that all the things I've been doing have been important. It's really making me think and pray about just what is going on. And, as I mentioned briefly before, I'm wondering if what I'm supposed to be doing is learning something different about emptiness, about prayer and about Advent. I don't really think I've learned much yet, but I think I'm getting to the point where I can surrender my ideas about what is supposed to be happening. 

While I'm trying to wrap my mind around all this, I'm thinking that I might spread out what I planned to say about this passage in one post over a longer period of time. Of course, at this point I have no idea whether or not this is going to work out, but one way or another, you will find out in the next week or so.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I want to thank my husband Bill for really going beyond the call of duty to make these pictures possible. When the only bird nest I could find (Why I don't have an empty bird nest on my 10 acres, I don't know.) was in a tall crêpe myrtle at Walgreen's, he and the very tall, very kind manager retrieved it for me. Also, Bill went and chopped down some bamboo, which, unfortunately abounds on our 10 acres, and made the reed pipe.

AMDG

Hide Yourself for a Time

Insignificant man, rise up! Flee your preoccupations for a little while. Hide yourself for a time from your turbulent thoughts. Cast aside, now, your heavy responsibilities and put off your burdensome business. Make a little space free for God; and rest for a little time in him.

Enter the inner chamber of your mind; shut out all thoughts. Keep only thought of God, and thoughts that can aid you in seeking him. Close your door and seek him. Speak now, my whole heart! Speak now to God, saying, I seek your face; your face, Lord, will I seek.

And come you now, O Lord my God, teach my heart where and how it may seek you, where and how it may find you.

St. Anslem, the Proslogion

This is from the Office of Readings for the first Friday of Advent. It's lovely advice. I wish I could take it right now, but right now I have to do my job. What I'm trying to figure out is how to make a little space free for God even while I'm working. I haven't quite figured it out yet, but I think maybe it can be done. 

AMDG

Advent Pilgrimage

C. S. Lewis said that he suspected that if we reached Heaven we would find that it had been Heaven all the way to Heaven, or if we went to Hell, it had been Hell all the way to Hell. I am finding that on my pilgrimage, all the way is a pilgrimage. I suspected it would be this way; I'm pretty sure I hoped it would be this way. It's not just a matter of walking our bit of road on the weekends and then going home to life as usual. It permeates every area of my life.

There is, of course, the obvious, physical side of things. We have to spend 45 minutes to an hour several times during the week walking so that we we'll be in shape to walk on the weekends. Considering that we have to leave home at 6:45 a.m. to get to work and the very earliest we get home, and this is rare, is about 5:15 p.m. So an extra hour makes for a long day. Since we have to walk in town because it's too dark when we get home, we've been taking advantage of the fact that we are there late to go to the 5:00 p.m. Mass at the college where Bill works. This is wonderful, but it puts us home between 6:30 and 7:00 p.m., so twelve hours away from home. But difficulty is to be expected on every pilgrimage, so I don't really mind. I have to admit though that sometimes when I get really tired and hungry, I get pretty grouchy.

However, the most surprising thing to me has been a really heightened spiritual awareness. It's as though sometime when I wasn't watching I slipped into another world where everything matters more than I ever realized it did. Things in nature seem to reveal their true nature. I'm more aware of how my behaviour affects other people, of how a moment of rudeness, or irritation, or just plain negligence on my part can reverberate in another person's life.

And also, God seems to be nagging me to death, or, more likely, to life. I can't get away with anything. For instance, I almost always go to Mass and Confession on Saturday mornings. Last Saturday, I was really tired and I slept late and I just did not want to go out. I did not want to do it. It was a battle every step of the way, and then the homily was about a soldier who had fallen asleep on guard duty, and how we have to remain awake.  Little things like this keep happening. It's good. It's keeping me awake.

So far, Advent has not been what I thought it would be. I pictured a time of quiet meditation, and I planned to write a series of meditative posts like I did in Lent. Well, it's just not turning out that way. I have something

to do for the next four nights. One unexpected good thing is that I've been able to get to Mass five days in a row which is almost unheard of since we moved to Mississippi. Tuesday evening I had something to keep me in Memphis, so we drove to work in separate cars and I went to
early Mass at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. When they renovated the cathedral, they moved the tabernacle into a little chapel on the side of the altar. I would have preferred that they had left it where it was, but at least the tabernacle is visible from most of the nave. On the left, you can see the view from the transept. I got to Mass early, so I went to pray in the chapel  and I was  thinking  that because of the way the room

was built, and especially because of the ceiling it felt a bit like being in an egg, but then I thought, no, like being in a womb, and that Jesus was there in the tabernacle waiting to be born when He is given to us in Communion. It was a nice thought to be sitting there in Advent, waiting in the womb of the Immaculate Conception to born with Jesus.

AMDG

Come Let Us Worship the Lord, the King Who Is To Come

In her concern for our salvation, our loving mother the Church uses this holy season to teach us through hymns, canticles and other forms of expression, of voice or ritual, used by the Holy Spirit. She shows us how grateful we should be for so great a blessing, and how to gain its benefit: our hearts should be as much prepared for the coming of Christ as if He were still to come into this world.

                                              St. Charles Borromeo, from the Office of Readings for the First Monday in Advent

I love Advent. It's probably my favorite season of the year, although I might change my mind when Lent rolls around. I love my advent wreath  and my new dark purple tablecloth. I have spent years and years and years unto years searching for one that was just this shade of purple. I love switching from Volume IV of the Liturgy of the Hours to Volume I, pulling my extra-special ribbons (because there are eight and eight is what you really need) out of Ordinary Time, weeks 18-34, and arranging them in Advent and Christmas. I love playing my Advent CD in the car and singing. I love pulling my purple sweater out of the drawer where I stuffed it in disgust on Holy Saturday. I love the new round Liturgical Calendar in my PRE room. I love teaching the kids in my class about the "hymns, canticles and other forms of expression, of voice or ritual" that the Holy Spirit uses to inspire us in Advent. I love waiting in Joyful Hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I just love the whole thing.

To aid me in my Advent meditations this year I have, as I mentioned yesterday, Caryll Houselander's Reed of God, which I am reading for the second time this year, and Ronald Thomas's (husband of Sally) Prepare Ye the Way. That's the book that's standing up on my bookshelf so you can see the cover. I was very anxious to get Ron's book in time to have it on the first day, and then I was so busy that I didn't even open it until this morning. This seems to be the way with all my Advent plans this year, so I'm just waiting in joyful hope to see what else happens (although yesterday I wasn't so joyful). 

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Today is the feast of St. Francis Xavier, one of the first Jesuits, and missionary to Asia. After his meditation on St. Francis today, Ron Thomas offers this prayer, "St. Francis Xavier, pray for us, that we who live in a culture where the Gospel is everywhere present, but seldom believed and lived, may see it take root through the Catholic Faith!"  Everywhere present, but seldom believed and lived--this contrast never really stood out for me so much as when I read this. The evidence of Christianity really is almost inescapable in our country, and yet it's true import is most often overlooked. May St. Francis pray for us all today.

By the way, the title of this post is the antiphon that we will be using with the Invitatory Psalm from now until December 16, or is it the 17th? I don't have my breviary handy.

AMDG