Advent as Countercultural

Advent as Countercultural

“To pray for your enemies, to worry about the poor when you have worries enough of your own, to start becoming yourself fully by giving of yourself prodigally to whoever needs you, to love your neighbors when an intelligent 4th grader could tell you that the way to get ahead in the world is to beat your neighbors to the draw every chance you get—that was what this God asked, Paul wrote.”—Frederick Buechner, Quote of the Day, first published in The Clown in the Belfry.

Buechner reminds us how countercultural the Christian faith was from the get-go as well as today. There is no better time to experience this than in the season of Advent. Advent is the four weeks before Christmas at the beginning of the church year. Our culture during December is hurrying, overloaded, frantic, and caught up in commercial craziness. Meanwhile, the season of Advent calls us to a quiet preparedness, watching, waiting, and pausing.

One year, the staff at our church even made “pause, breathe, wait, watching for the Christ child” our theme for the season. “Pause, Breathe, Wait, Watching for the Christ Child.”

We may have had less activity in Advent during the pandemic, which is now becoming an endemic season. Still, the overriding anxiety and isolation of this long season of illness and death called us away from Advent quietness even more than our own busyness does.

 Advent is still my favorite season. This call to quietness is even more needed in our present time. We put on pause the cacophony of anxiety inside and outside of our heads, sit in a favorite chair, read or write, look or walk outside, light candles, feel something moving inside of our body as we move from our head to our body, and become grounded to the present moment. The air we breathe in and out is full of anticipation of new birth in us and the world. The Christ Child already within us awakens, opens its eyes, and smiles as it sees the light of Christ across the room in someone we want to know better.

Mike Chapman St. Martins in the Field London

Remembering December 14

December 14

Remember the names of children and teachers killed at Sandy Hook Elementary twelve 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, December 10, 2018.

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 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 listed the names of the children and teachers killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School twelve 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 of the children 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.

Joanna   https://www.joannaseibert.com/

 

 

Feast Day of Saint Lucy, December 13

St. Lucy, December 13

“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 spectacular in Scandinavia when Lucy was a native of Sicily. The tradition of honoring Lucy may have originated in Sweden with Vikings. They traveled south on peaceful trading expeditions to Italy and brought back the stories of the early Christian martyr Lucia.

December thirteenth 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 the days of winter were quite 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 but treasure, 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 take this Advent practice to our homes. 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.