Second Sunday of Advent

Amor (Love)

 

 

 

Advent
Thomas Merton 

Charm with your stainlessness these winter nights,
Skies, and be perfect! Fly, vivider in the fiery dark, you quiet meteors,
And disappear.
You moon, be slow to go down,
This is your full!

The four white roads make off in silence
Towards the four parts of the starry universe.
Time falls like manna at the corners of the wintry earth.
We have become more humble than the rocks,
More wakeful than the patient hills.

Charm with your stainlessness these nights in Advent,
holy spheres,
While minds, as meek as beasts,
Stay close at home in the sweet hay;
And intellects are quieter than the flocks that feed by starlight.

Oh pour your darkness and your brightness over all our solemn valleys,
You skies: and travel like the gentle Virgin,
Toward the planets’ stately setting,
Oh white full moon as quiet as Bethlehem!

First Sunday of Advent

Spera (Hope)

  

Advent
Christina Rossetti 

This Advent moon shines cold and clear,
  These Advent nights are long;
Our lamps have burned year after year
  And still their flame is strong.
'Watchman, what of the night?' we cry,
  Heart-sick with hope deferred:
'No speaking signs are in the sky,'
  Is still the watchman's word.

The Porter watches at the gate,
  The servants watch within;
The watch is long betimes and late,
  The prize is slow to win.
'Watchman, what of the night?' But still
  His answer sounds the same:
'No daybreak tops the utmost hill,
  Nor pale our lamps of flame.'

One to another hear them speak
  The patient virgins wise:
'Surely He is not far to seek'—
  'All night we watch and rise.'
'The days are evil looking back,
  The coming days are dim;
Yet count we not His promise slack,
  But watch and wait for Him.'

One with another, soul with soul,
  They kindle fire from fire:
'Friends watch us who have touched the goal.'
  'They urge us, come up higher.'
'With them shall rest our waysore feet,
  With them is built our home,
With Christ.'—'They sweet, but He most sweet,
  Sweeter than honeycomb.'

There no more parting, no more pain,
  The distant ones brought near,
The lost so long are found again,
  Long lost but longer dear:
Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard,
  Nor heart conceived that rest,
With them our good things long deferred,
  With Jesus Christ our Best.

We weep because the night is long,
  We laugh for day shall rise,
We sing a slow contented song
  And knock at Paradise.
Weeping we hold Him fast, Who wept
  For us, we hold Him fast;
And will not let Him go except
  He bless us first or last.

Weeping we hold Him fast to-night;
  We will not let Him go
Till daybreak smite our wearied sight
  And summer smite the snow:
Then figs shall bud, and dove with dove
  Shall coo the livelong day;
Then He shall say, 'Arise, My love,
  My fair one, come away.'

(Image: Kim's Cottage Art)

A Questionnaire for Stir-Up Sunday

I posted these questions when I first began this blog back in October 2003, so perhaps it's time to pose them again. Things to think about...or to answer!

The questionnaire is from Celebrate the Wonder by Kristin M. Tucker and Rebecca Lowe Warren:

1. What is your earliest Christmas memory?
2. What are your favorite Advent and Christmas traditions?
3. Is Advent special to you? Why? Is Christmas special to you? Why?
4. What do you want yourself and members of your family to remember most and value about Advent and Christmas?
5. How would you spend Christmas if you had no money to spend on gifts?
6. How do you think Jesus would want his birthday celebrated?
7. How will this year's holiday season be different from other years (due to age changes, finances, marriages, deaths, health problems, community and church responsibilities)?
8. How would you like this year's holiday celebration to differ from last year's?
9. What are your friends and other relatives going to be doing during the holidays?
10. Whom would you like to spend time with during this year's holiday season?

How would you answer them?