Showing posts with label Advent 2017. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Advent 2017. Show all posts
24 Dec 2017
23 Dec 2017
24th December 2017 - 4th Sunday of Advent
On this the fourth and final Sunday of Advent, we take a final deep breath to prepare ourselves for the celebration of the mystery of the Nativity of the Lord. On this weeks programme we share the reflection of Sr Dympna Clancy and well as our regular reflection on the Sunday gospel. We have a quick visit through the saints that mark out the day of the Octave of Christmas as well as other odds & ends.
You can listen to the podcast of this weeks full programme HERE.
Advent Reflection
Christmas is certainly a time for children but it is also a time for anyone - child or adult - who seeks hope. It centres around the birth of a Child. Hope has to be centred on a person, and the crib reminds us who that person of hope is - the Babe of Bethlehem, a child full of promise, a child full of peace. When we look at the crib perhaps a couple of questions might be:
- Is this the Person I need right now in my life?
- Is this the Companion I need now who can help me get through the cares and the worries that I have now?
- Is this the Person who can make a difference in my life each day?
It is important to keep the "Christ" in Christmas, the best gift that we have been given. It is important to recall the many blessings that we have, the gifts that we have been given in our lives. We think of many suffering around the world, we should reach out to them in prayer.
Christmas is a celebration of a historic event but how much time do we give to speaking to the person whose birth we are celebrating?
The reflection from Sr Dympna Clancy is excerpted from the main programme podcast HERE. It was originally broadcast in 2012.
Gospel - Luke 1:26-38
The angel Gabriel was sent from God
to a town of Galilee called Nazareth,
to a virgin betrothed to a man named Joseph,
of the house of David,
and the virgin's name was Mary.
And coming to her, he said,
"Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you."
But she was greatly troubled at what was said
and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.
Then the angel said to her,
"Do not be afraid, Mary,
for you have found favor with God.
"Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,Reflections on this weeks gospel:
and you shall name him Jesus.
He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High,
and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father,
and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever,
and of his kingdom there will be no end."
But Mary said to the angel,
"How can this be,
since I have no relations with a man?"
And the angel said to her in reply,
"The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.
Therefore the child to be born
will be called holy, the Son of God.
And behold, Elizabeth, your relative,
has also conceived a son in her old age,
and this is the sixth month for her who was called barren;
for nothing will be impossible for God."
Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
May it be done to me according to your word."
Then the angel departed from her.
Word on Fire
English Dominicans
Sunday Reflections
Centre for Liturgy
Advent Reflections 2015 - Annunciation - Kathleen Norris
Liturgical odds & ends
Liturgy of the Hours - Octave of Christmas
Saints of the Week
December 25th - Nativity of the Lord
December 26th - St Stephen
December 27th - St John the Apostle
December 28th - The Holy Innocents
December 29th - St Thomas a Becket
December 30th - Blessed Margaret Colonna
December 31st - Feast of the Holy Family
O Antiphons 2017 - December 23rd - O Emmanuel
O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, exspectatio gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos Domine Deus noster.
O Emmanuel, our King and Law-giver, desired of the nations and their salvation, come and save us, Lord our God.Jesus Emmanuel has already come. It is not a matter now of Christ’s being where we are; it is a matter of our being in the consciousness of where Christ is in life and where He is not as well. Where is Christ for you? Is there a place in your life that you know down deep is not in the spirit of Christ at all?
PAYG - ‘God With Us: An Advent Retreat with the O Antiphons’
— Joan D. Chittister, OSB
O Emmanuel: Meditations on the O Antiphons
22 Dec 2017
O Antiphons - 2017 - December 22nd - O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)
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| O Rex Gentium ... Christ in Majesty depicted in John Piper’s window in the Chapel of Saint John’s Hospital, Lichfield |
O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.
O King of the Nations for whom they long, the corner-stone who makes of both one, come and deliver man whom you made from clay.
Isaiah had prophesied, “For a child is born to us, a son is given us; upon his shoulder dominion rests. They name him Wonder-Counsellor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, Prince of Peace.” (9:5), and “He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plough shares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again.” (2:4)
The earlier antiphons have already alluded to the Messiah coming not only to Israel but to convert the gentile nations and redeem them for his own. Now this sixth antiphon clearly addresses the saviour as the King of the Gentiles (Jer.10:7) and the Desired One of the nations. The Messiah is the cornerstone on whom our spiritual foundations are laid, but on whom unbelievers stumble (Matt. 21:42). This cornerstone unites and binds Jew and gentile into one, making peace between them. The plea is that God save all humanity, all his creation that he formed from the dust of the earth (Gen.2:7). We yearn for him once again to breathe the breath of his new life into us.
PAYG - ‘God With Us: An Advent Retreat with the O Antiphons’
Previous years reflections on the O Antiphon:
- Blue Eyed Ennis - O King of Nations
- Pathways to God
- Discerning Hearts
21 Dec 2017
O Antiphons - 2017 - December 21st - O Oriens (O Morning Star)
21 December
O Oriens, splendor lucis æternæ, et sol justitiæ: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
O Oriens, splendor lucis æternæ, et sol justitiæ: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
O Morning Star, splendour of eternal light and sun of justice, come and illumine those seated in darkness and the shadow of death.
Isaiah 9:2; Luke 1:9; Zech 6: 12-13; Heb 1:3; Malachi 4:2
Advent Reflection
(Repost from 2014)
(Repost from 2014)
Br Martin Browne OSB
Today’s date is special: December 21st – the Winter Solstice – the day when the sun is at its lowest in the sky… the shortest day of the year… mid-winter’s day.
The ancients often feared nature, and worried that if the days kept getting shorter, and the nights kept getting longer, they’d end up in total darkness and everything and everyone would die. In our age of electric light and central heating, such fears may sound strange, but they were real. And for such cultures, the Winter Solstice was a real turning point. After it, the nights got shorter and the days began getting longer again. The sun, which had been sinking lower and lower for several months, began rising again… The solstice was a sign that God had not abandoned humanity. Spring would soon come and life would continue for another year. As Robert Browning’s Pippa said: God’s in His heaven — All’s right with the world!
We are blessed in Ireland to have the 5,000 year old Newgrange, in County Meath – a Neolithic passage tomb – a huge mound, built over a sixty-foot passageway, leading into three central burial chambers. On December 21st, and only on December 21st, at dawn, the rising sun shines directly along the long passage into the chamber and illuminates the chamber floor… It’s a magnificent, magical moment. Tens of thousands of people apply for the meagre ten or twelve tickets available for space inside the passage tomb on this day each year. What a feat of engineering to have built such a structure so precisely 5,000 years ago!
Why did its builders design Newgrange to do this on the Winter Solstice? Well, they wanted, in a sense, to trap the sun in the depths of the burial chamber on the shortest day of the year, for fear that it would go away altogether. They didn’t want the light to leave them and abandon them to darkness and death.
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| O Orien Duke University Chapel |
O Rising Sun, you are the splendour of eternal light and the sun of justice.
Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death!
It’s a powerful and beautiful prayer. Of course, we worship not the physical light, but Jesus as Light of the World. And in the bleakness of mid-winter, we address him as ‘Rising Sun’ and call out to him to save us. It’s a primal, visceral thing. Just as we light candles in our homes, and put up all kinds of fancy (and sometimes crazy!) lights outside, we don’t want to let the darkness beat us. Instinctively, we almost want, as Dylan Thomas famously wrote, to rage against the dying of the light. And of course, on Christmas morning, we will hear those powerful words from Saint John’s Gospel:
What came through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race;
the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
The darkness has not overcome it… Appropriate words for us to meditate on when we consider the many injustices and areas of conflict in our world today. Powerful words to give us hope when we think of all those who live in poverty, or hunger, or trafficked slavery…
The human instinct towards greed and the will to power is not the last word. God’s vision for his world is for flourishing, and for liberation. The Father’s will is, as Isaiah prophesied, that the people who walked in darkness would see a great light. The fulfilment of that prophecy is the good news of Christmas: The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. God is with us! He humbled himself to share in our humanity so that we might come to share in his divinity. That indescribably generous gift is the Christmas present which beats all others. To those who did accept him, he gave power to become children of God.
On this important date in our calendars, let’s look at the calendar more closely: The Church celebrates John the Baptist’s birthday on June 24th – the longest day of the year, when the sun is at its brightest. You might recall that John said that he must decrease, and Jesus must increase. Well, every day since June 24th, the days have indeed been ‘decreasing’. They’ve been getting shorter, right up until today. But with the Saviour’s birth, they become longer again, and so John’s desire that he must decrease and Jesus must increase is mirrored in the beautiful rhythm of the Church’s year.
So, why did John the Baptist need to decrease? Because, as the Gospel says: he was not the light, but came to testify to the light. But we can’t consign that role to the past: John the Baptist’s mission is shared by all Christians: we are all called to bear witness to Jesus… to testify to the light. We are called to work and to pray that his Kingdom may come – on earth as it is in heaven. And so the beautiful season of Christmas, soon to dawn on us, is a lot more than carols, gifts, feasting and decorations. It is also a challenge to each of us. It is a challenge to live, speak and act in such a way that we truly are voices crying out in the wilderness of our culture, and bearing witness to Jesus, the Light of the World. It is a challenge to act with honesty, integrity and generosity, so that in the darkness of mid-winter, his light may shine ever more brightly.
The Winter Solstice is a turning point in our planet’s year. If we let it, it can be a turning point for each one of us too. How will you testify to the light this Christmas?
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20 Dec 2017
O Antiphons 2017 - December 20th - O Clavis David (O Key of David)
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| The Harrowing of Hell by the Scottish artist Peter Howson |
O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel; qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.
O Key of David and Sceptre of the House of Israel; you open and no man closes; you close and no man opens. Come, and deliver from the chains of prison those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Todays O Antiphon is O Clavis David (O Key of David). It reminds us that Jesus is the key that opens the gates of heaven to us. Are there doors in your life that you keep locked? Doors in your heart to areas that you wish no-one to see, not even God? Trust in the Key of David, Who wants to free us from all darkness and sin:
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The key and sceptre are traditional symbols of kingly power and authority. Christ, the anointed one, is the heir of David and possessor of the kingdom. Jesus himself also made use of this symbol, showing the prophetic relationship of the earthly kingdom of David to the kingdom of God. All power and authority was given to him after the resurrection, and he entrusted this power to "bind and to loose" to Peter and the ministers of his church.
In the closing petition we look to Jesus to unlock the fetters of sin that keep us tightly chained. It is he who frees us from our captivity. We recall the deliverance proclaimed by the psalmist of old: "they dwelt in darkness and gloom, bondsmen in want and in chains,...and he led them forth from darkness and gloom and broke their bonds asunder" (Psalm 107: 10, 14).
PAYG - ‘God With Us: An Advent Retreat with the O Antiphons’
Reflections from prior years on the O Antiphons:
- iBenedictines - O Clavis David and Our Need of Freedom 2016
- Salt + Light - O Key of David
- Dating God - O Key of David: Unlocking the Chains of Sin
- Blue Eyed Ennis - O Clavis David
- Concordia Theology - O Clavis David
- University of Notre Dame - He stands and knocks: The Key of David
19 Dec 2017
O Antiphons - 2017 - December 19th - O Radix Jesse
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| Icon with the Virgin of the Tree of Jesse. 1666 Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens, Greece. Painted by Theodore Poulakis |
O Root of Jesse, you stand as a sign for the peoples; before you kings shall keep silence and to you all nations shall have recourse. Come, save us, and do not delay.
O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem Gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.
Isaiah 52:13, 15; 53:2: "See, my servant shall prosper...So shall he startle many nations, because of him kings shall stand speechless. ...He grew up like a sapling before him, like a shoot".
Isaiah prophesied a restoration of David's throne - a new branch budding out of the old root. Christ is the root of Jesse in a two-fold sense: he is the descendant of David, who was the youngest son of Jesse, and he inherited the royal throne. The angel foretold to Mary, "The Lord God will give him the throne of David his father. He will rule over the house of Jacob forever and his reign will be without end" (Luke 1:32-33).
Our hearts more and more urgently cry out for God's reign to extend over all humanity: "Come, save us, and do not delay".
Reflections from prior years on the O Antiphons:
- iBenedictines - O Radix Jesse and Our Need of Roots 2016
- Salt + Light - O Radix Jesse
- Dating God - O Root of Jesse: Getting out of God’s Way
- Blue Eyed Ennis - O Root of Jesse
- Wellsprings reflection - O Root of Jesse
18 Dec 2017
O Antiphons - 2017 - December 18th - O Adonai (O Lord)
O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammæ rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.
O Adonai, and Ruler of the house of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and gave him the Law on Sinai, come to redeem us with outstretched arm
We are also reminded of the Israelite's' deliverance from bondage under pharaoh - a foreshadowing of our own redemption from sin. The image of God's arm outstretched in power to save his chosen people also brings to mind the later scene of Jesus with his arms outstretched for us on the cross.
PAYG - ‘God With Us: An Advent Retreat with the O Antiphons’
Reflections from prior years on the O Antiphons
- iBenedictines - O Adonai: Our Need of Holiness 2016
- Salt + Light - O Adonai
- Dating God - O Holy Lord: The God Who Hears Our Cries
- Blue Eyed Ennis - O Lord
- University of Notre Dame - O Adonai
- Thinking Anglicans - O Adonai
17 Dec 2017
O Antiphons - 2017 - December 17th - O Sapientia (O Holy Wisdom)
O Sapientia, quæ ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiæ
O Wisdom, you came forth from the mouth of the Most High and, reaching from beginning to end, you ordered all things mightily and sweetly. Come, and teach us the way of prudence.
“O Wisdom, O holy Word of God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to salvation.”
Isaiah had prophesied, “The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and of understanding, a spirit of counsel and of strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of the Lord, and his delight shall be the fear of the Lord.” (11:2-3), and “Wonderful is His counsel and great is His wisdom.” (28:29).
Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia or Sapientia) is here personified, present with God at the beginning of creation. Traditionally depecited as a woman in iconography and art; Wisdom is seen as a prefigurement of Jesus, the eternal Word of God, the "logos" John described in the opening of his gospel.
Wisdom is the foundation of fear of the Lord, of holiness, or right living: it is wisdom whom we bid to come and teach us prudence.
The cry "Come" will be repeated again and again, insistent and hope-filled.
If you would like to read or do lectio on scripture for the day:
Some reflections/links from previous years
- O Sapientia! O Wisdom! Antiphonal healing for a divided age
- O Sapientia and our Need of Wisdom 2016
- Salt + Light - O Wisdom
- Dating God - O Wisdom: Kinship at the Heart of Creation
- Wellsprings reflection including scripture O Wisdom
- University of Notre Dame - O Wisdom
- Blue Eyed Ennis - O Wisdom
- Dating God - O Wisdom: recognising the Spirit of God in the World (2012) and O Wisdom: Occupying God’s Foolishness (2011)
Journeying through Advent with Patrick Kavanagh
From The Irish Catholic
The poet can help us declutter to prepare for the coming of Christ, writes Sr Una Agnew SSL
When Patrick Kavanagh leaves home to go to live in Dublin in 1939, he does so in the belief that, relieved of the constant constraints of farming, he will be free to pursue his writing ambition. He will also, he hopes, have an opportunity in Dublin to meet with established poets and writers. This dream, he soon learns, is an illusion. Too many writers in competition with each other trying to eke out a living in the city, and in war-time, means, that he is often ignored or written off as a blow-in peasant poet. Secretly, however, many envy him the lyrical genius that is already evident in Ploughman and Other Poems (1936).
He lands himself in Dublin with a very limited formal education, he tries his hand at journalism, and occasional newspaper articles even film-reviews but he survives mostly on the financial support of his brother Peter, who is now a qualified teacher in Westland Row Christian Brothers school.
Despite an initial sense of freedom to write, Kavanagh’s feels himself an exile in Dublin and feeling more and more the loss of the familiar landmarks of home. He tries to gain recognition among Dublin writers and journalists by frequenting the Dublin pubs especially the Palace Bar where writers and journalists at that time seemed to congregate.
Victim
There was a strong drink culture pertaining to writing. He wasn’t a heavy drinker when he lived in Inniskeen; an occasional bottle of porter was all he could afford. But, soon he succumbed to some extent at least and became victim of this drink culture.
City life was now taking its toll and he knew it. He missed the quieter rhythms of farming life. There are too many distractions, too much time spent drinking, vainly seeking the attention of women and fighting for his rights as a poet. The poet in him who walked the hills of Inniskeen, “loving life’s miracles”, who had sat alone in his little 10x12room above the kitchen allowed “its little window lets in the stars” was now bombarded by too much. He, the lover of whins and bogholes, even the weeds and grass that fed his creativity, was losing something important to his raison d’etre as a poet. He was losing his capacity for wonder and awe which we know is the beginning of a sense of the Transcendent in life which we as Christian name as God.
The poem Advent is a sequence of two sonnets. In it, Patrick Kavanagh confronts his dilemma and at a very opportune moment, at the onset of Advent. Brought up in a deeply-religious family, he knows that Advent is a time of purification, fasting and preparation for the coming of Christ. He stops to reflect and to take himself to task on squandering some of his real poetic resources. He addresses himself in a forthright way, almost chastising himself with the words: “We have tested and tasted too much, lover”. For all his awkward overtures to beautiful women on Grafton Street and Raglan Road, the authentic lover in himself is being suffocated. Kavanagh often talks to himself, to his many selves! He also takes himself in hand by writing. At this point in time, he is in urgent need of purification in his deepest soul. He needs radical simplification of lifestyle to counteract the bombardment of his soul by the ‘too much’ of everything he has recently begun to experience.
Using a double sonnet format, he addresses his loss of innocence and wonder and in a second movement, sets out to restore his soul to readiness for an authentic celebration of Christ’s coming.
Entering the solitude of his “Advent-darkened room”, he craves again the memory of “a black-slanted Ulster hill”, his own Shancoduff, his triangular hill, that could restore renewal to his soul. He thinks also perhaps of his little room over the kitchen so that could restore him to the wonder of little things. Kavanagh was particularly fond of restricted vision, probably derived from the cramped space of his family home, yet whose little window “lets in the stars”.
So far, the city has been making too great assault on his senses and starving the real lover in himself, whose soul’s desire craves solitude, simplicity and an almost a monk-like austerity. He says in another poem, that envisions him in his little room over the kitchen: “I am like a monk in a grey cell/copying out my soul’s queer miracle”. His poetry he knew was the precious outcome of “The luxury of a child’s soul…” For Kavanagh, this is not childishness, but a quality of openness, receptivity, open-mouthed curiosity – a quality of wonder. Wonder, he knows, is the beginning of philosophy. It leads to awe which evokes awareness of God’s presence in the universe.
Kavanagh knows that he has to embark on some cleansing ritual. He mentions the traditional “dry black bread and sugarless tea” of the Advent fast long ago…Kavanagh did not need this, he was so poor he often had to borrow a shilling to buy bread pretending it was for the gas metre. But he desperately wanted to find his own way, his own poet’s practice of becoming alert to the newness in everything…to be re-awakened to the wonder of the world and the people around him. He wants all of us to join with him in discovering this mystery of newness, to put to rout boredom, any sense of the staleness of things or a know-it-all mentality that robs us of the wonder of seeing things, as if, for the first time….
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child’s soul, we’ll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.
And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill,
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool, will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.
Visualisation
What is noticeable in this first part of the poem Advent, is the poet’s deliberate visualisation of an icon of peace, tranquillity and innocence. His memory calls up for him a powerful icon of innocence, “the spirit-shocking /Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill”. Kavanagh had fallen in love with a hill which he knew was “Love’s doorway to Life”. “On the stem of memory imagination blossoms”. Remembering will be the key to reawakening. He recalls a neighbour’s banal conversation, “the tedious talking of an old fool”…yet he longs to hear it once more. He is nostalgic for his childlike wonder at whins bushes, bog-holes, he once explored as he said himself, “lost in unthinking joy” and old Stables, that evoked for him something of the mystery of Eternal Time, a forceful reminder of the Christmas story.
So, how does Kavanagh’s Advent get himself back on track? He pictures for himself a time and place where he could dwell in his imagination and where his vision was clear and unspoilt. The simple icon which he places before his imagination is the triangular hill of Shancoduff in the shade of the big Forth of Rocksavage.
Let us pause at this point and try to visualise our image, what will be our Advent icon, that brings peace and helps us to detox in this lead up to Christmas freed from the pressures of ‘Black Fridays’ and ‘Cyber Mondays’ and all the hurry and excessive fuss that can smother out the real meaning of Advent and Christmas! What image of peace and calm restores in us to “the luxury of a child’s soul”. It may be a quiet place of prayer, a walk along the seashore or a window that lets in our star, even a spot in our back garden where the birds come to feed…somewhere we can shed our worries, cares and busy-ness and find our soul. Let us find this place and rest there for a few moments.
Second Stanza of Advent: Visualising the Difference
Every spiritual practise makes a difference. It makes an adjustment, however slight to the quality of our lives, even if we only practice it for five minutes every day. The second half of Advent is at pains to visualise, in detail, the change that will take place when a personal problem is acknowledged, the need expressed and taken in hand. The poem Advent provides us with a template of how Kavanagh managed his life at this juncture. He was complex in his character yet it was “on his hand, the humble trade of versing which could easily, restore his equanimity”. He places great store in the hope that by writing, he can make it happen.
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
We’ll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we’ll hear it among simple, decent men, too,
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won’t we be rich, my love and I, and please
God we shall not ask for reason’s payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges,
Nor analyse God’s breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower.
Kavanagh makes a deliberate return to the practise of wondering at everyday things. We, too, can find our small daily wonders. It is not likely we will be present at a country churning but we have our own rituals where arguments occur about who empties the dishwasher or puts out the bins. The renewed consciousness envisioned by Kavanagh will restrain our judgementalism; free us from our favourite self-righteous perch on the high moral ground, where we feel confident we know what is bes for everyone. This high moral ground, often despised by Kavanagh, is not necessarily the friend of authentic Christian spirituality. Better be aware rather, of our own vulnerabilities, and allow ourselves be moved to compassion of heart that seeks to find good in everyone. In this renewed state of mind Kavanagh see the value of what others might call menial work, “men who barrow dung in gardens under trees”. No one is to be omitted from the largesse of Christ’s coming. With hospitality of heart as his ideal he celebrates the “ordinary plenty” of everyday and declares himself rich, now that he has “thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages/Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour”. A radical cleansing, we feel, has taken place in the poet, which we as Advent people only hope to emulate.
He asks in particular, that we refrain from trying to analyse our new-found wonder. It is especially unhelpful to attempt to fathom “the heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges”. Only someone who has stood still near a hedgerow and listened to seepage of raindrops through a hedge, will understand what the poet means. ‘Strangeness’ for Kavanagh means mystery, and even the most casual greeting spoken in passing can carry something of the breath of God.
To reach this state of spiritual richness, we wonder what is it we need to throw in the dust-bin this Advent? It could be a grudge, a hurt, an unhealthy practice. There is an area of life that each of us can resolves to declutter!
Both agendas set out by this poem Advent, which Kavanagh has set for himself have been addressed. They are applicable to all of us. First there is the letting go of too much, our excess baggage, our need for detox, and secondly a renewal of vision, understanding and gratitude. These require discipline, purpose and visualisation of positive alternatives. Kavanagh is skilled in opening up positive alternatives to “the too much” of life. There are infinite possibilities of renewal that lie within the potentialities of our graced selves if we take time to find them. We need to treasure our personal Advent icon, whatever it is, that will quiet our souls and help us to wait upon Mystery in the true spirit of Advent.
The sonnet structure, along with the asceticism proper to Advent season, inspired the poet to renew himself in spirit. Can we too aim at discovering our own Advent transformation and as a result, find a rekindling of wonder in little things, gratitude “for the ordinary plenty” in a world where many are starving? We hope too, that our efforts to wait in hope for Ghrist’s coming, may be crowned by the expectancy of epiphany, a renewal of hope when Christ comes with “a January flower”.
This is adapted from an advent reflection given by Sr Una as part of the Presentation Brothers’ ‘Monday at the Monastery’ event in Glasthule on November 27.
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