Awaiting the Child

Guest Writer Isabel Anders

Anders: Advent, Awaiting the Child

“Isabel Anders wrote these Advent meditations while waiting for her first baby to be born. I read them in my husband’s hospital room, watching him die. Now, another Advent approaches, another time when birth and death draw close together, and it is not always possible to tell which is which.

As we move into Advent, we are called to listen, something we seldom take time to do in this frenetic world of overactivity. But waiting for birth, waiting for death—these are listening times when the usual distractions of life have lost their power to take us away from God’s call to center in Christ.”—Madeleine L’Engle.

John the Baptist represents the call to radical preparation of one’s whole life for the coming of the kingdom. His is an extreme message, and his story ends with an early death. Yet while he lived, he praised the Lord with his whole being, habits, reputation, and life—for all it was worth. He focused on the Old Testament prophets’ messages, like Isaiah, and validated the hope expressed so long ago. A way, a path to God, would be prepared. A voice cries, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a pathway for our God” (Is. 40:3).

The call to repentance must always precede praise. Acknowledging sin clears the way for the truth of God’s deliverance, for the Messiah to come into his own. And praise naturally follows the revelation of truth. John was the last of the forerunners of the Lord, a close earthly relation of Jesus. As a baby, he had leaped in his mother Elizabeth’s womb at the announcement that Christ would be born into the world, a foreshadowing of his prophetic mission to praise and acknowledge the Messiah with his whole being.

The connection between repentance and praise that the Baptist exemplifies is fitting in Advent, helping us hold the tension between joy-in-waiting and joy-set-loose. …

In Advent, we talk of preparing and waiting; therefore, it would be almost impossible to avoid mentioning what we are waiting for and why. Yet our emphasis on repentance, intermingled with praise, sometimes gives our songs a minor key. These days, we must consider our condition and dare to think, “What if he had not come?” Our redemption hangs in the balance, and “all lies in a passion of patience” as we wait.

We pray that he will come to our hearts, as he did in the lives of those faithful believers: Mary, John, Anna, Simeon, and Elizabeth. Acknowledging our unworthiness yet acceptance of the gift—two distinct actions—are inseparable in us as in those saints. Like their hope, our belief is part of the ongoing story of redemption. We are brought into line with the whole event through repentance and praise. —From Awaiting the Child: An Advent Journal by Isabel Anders (Cowley: 1987, 2005).

Isabel Anders

Joanna   joannaseibert.com https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

December 14th Sandy Hook

December 14th

Remember the names of children and teachers killed at Sandy Hook Elementary thirteen years ago, on December 14th, 2012.

“Holding these persons in our broken-open hearts, we are less likely to forget.”—“Advent Message for Today,” from St. Mary’s Cathedral, Memphis.

Charlotte Bacon, 6

Daniel Barden, 7

Olivia Engel, 6

Josephine Gay, 7

Ana Marquez-Greene, 6

Dylan Hockley, 6

Madeleine Hsu, 6

Catherine Hubbard, 6

Chase Kowalski, 7

Jesse Lewis, 6

James Mattioli, 6

Grace McDonnell, 7

Emilie Parker, 6

Jack Pinto, 6

Noah Pozner, 6

Caroline Previdi, 6

Jesica Rekos, 6

Avielle Richman, 6

Benjamin Wheeler, 6

Allison Wyatt, 6

Rachel Davino, 29 (Teacher)

Dawn Hochsprung, 47 (School Principal)

Nancy Lanza, 52 (Mother of the gunman)

Anne Marie Murphy, 52 (Teacher)

Lauren Rousseau, 30 (Teacher)

Mary Sherlach, 56 (School psychologist)

Victoria Soto, 27 (Teacher)

Adam Lanza (shooter)

 “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”—Elie Wiesel.

This “Advent Meditation for Today” from St. Mary’s Cathedral in Memphis lists the names of the children and teachers killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School thirteen years ago. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, keeps reminding us in his writings, which live on after him, that remembering those who have died, especially their names, helps us keep them alive. These “Holy Innocents” call us to keep their memory alive, as well as the memory of so many others, to remind us how guns and assault weapons are out of control in our country. These children and their teachers cry out for us to remember the lives they will never have.

As we pray for peace this Advent, may we pray for courage, sacrifice, forgiveness, compassion, and discernment to answer this question for our country. May we be guided by what we can learn from so many other countries that have found solutions to this issue.

So, what do the children and teachers of Sandy Hook Elementary School have to do with our spiritual lives? The God of love calls us daily to spread the love we learn as we connect to the God within ourselves and God in our neighbor. We know our God grieves with all these children and their families. God’s love also calls us to connect in some unknown way to their grief. Our love and grief call us to honor those who have died by working to prevent such acts of violence. Discernment and action are just as important parts of the spiritual life as prayer, silence, contemplation, and forgiveness.

St. Lucy December 13

St. Lucy, December 13th

“Santa Lucia, thy light is glowing

Through darkest winter night, comfort bestowing.

Dreams float on dreams tonight,

Comes then the morning light,

Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia.”—Swedish Children’s Folk Song.

Today, December 13th, in the darkest hours of the morning (2 a.m. to 4 a.m.), in Sweden and Norway, the eldest daughter of a family wearing a white gown, a red sash, and a crown of lingonberry twigs and seven burning candles on her head emerged out of the darkness carrying a tray of rich saffron buns and steaming coffee to wake up her family. Every village also has its own Lucy, who goes from one farm to the next carrying a torch to light her way, bringing cookies and buns at each house, and returning home by daybreak.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner for literature often has the honor of lighting the candles on the head of Lucy for the city of Stockholm. Throughout Sweden, they celebrate the feast day of Lucy as a festival of lights with bonfires, incense, and candlelight parades. It is a mystery how honoring St. Lucy became so widespread in Scandinavia, given that Lucy was a native of Sicily. The tradition of honoring Lucy may have originated among the Vikings in Sweden. They traveled south on peaceful trading expeditions to Italy and brought back the stories of the early Christian martyr Lucia.

December 13th is one of the shortest days of the year. In popular piety, Lucy is perhaps most revered because her feast day was, for many centuries, the shortest day of the year. (The calendar reform by Pope Gregory VIII (1582) would shift the shortest day to December 21/22, depending upon the year.) On Lucy’s day, the light gradually returned, and the days lengthened. This was particularly powerful in northern Europe, where winter days were relatively short.

Therefore, the Scandinavians honor a young Sicilian girl, Lucy, whose name means “light,” during the darkest part of their year, as light is about to return. It is all a mystery, but the tradition is beautiful.

I especially remember this day because two friends who carried the light of Christ to so many people died on this day, seven years apart. So, in my prayers on St. Lucy’s Day, I remembered special friends who have brought light out of darkness to so many, and I treasured especially those in my own life who showed me the light in times of darkness.

My Advent prayer on St. Lucy’s Day is to remember those who brought the light of Christ, the light of God, and the light of the Spirit to us.

St. Lucy Day is an Advent tradition that the Scandinavians have given us to remember the light that shines in our darkness.

We can also bring this Advent practice home. In the past, our family often celebrated St. Lucy’s Day during the second week of Advent, with our oldest granddaughter serving buns at an Advent family service. She dresses in a white dress with a red sash and carries a candle (or her St. Lucy doll), as we all say, the traditional song Lucy sings on her rounds.