Thank you for sharing Advent with us.
A blessed Christmas to you all.

Love Blooms Bright will return for Advent 2008.

The child in me has been caught up with memories of reading, re-reading and re-reading again of Shirley Hughes’ ‘Lucy and Tom’s Christmas’. At 5 am, Lucy and Tom rouse their parents - ‘Christmas has really begun’.

But Christmas is really a festival of night - of light in the darkness - of stars against the dark sky - of warmth against the winter cold. As we welcome the birth of Jesus, some warmth creeps even around cold hearts .. Emmanuel, God with us - no longer alone.

ADORING VIRGIN ADORING

The night we invaded the gallery
it rained and the snell wind
clawed through your clothes
and it wasn’t really night –
just late. ‘We close in
twenty minutes,’ said the man
and we chorused, variously,
‘We know’ ‘We’ve come to see
the Botticelli’ – as if he’d
painted only one – and then
we pounded up the spiral stair
under the glooming busts
and burst into the empty room.
And there she glowed
from a wall on our right
the pale face surrounded by
transparencies of flower
in pink. Floating. And we
stopped. The face was one
you might see reading on a bus -
not archaic or distant but
concerned, as if remembering
as she gazed, not at the child
but over, round and through.

Remembering or looking to
the piercing both of hands and soul?
Or was she seeing inwardly
the flaming eyes that greeted her
as problematically blessed
and hearing as she knelt to pray
the distant sound of snowy wings?
We stared in quiet until the room
was filled with unseen Gabriels
and then we heard approach not wings
but ordinary feet -‘It’s time’-
and smiled at this young messenger
and drifted into the wild rain
under a sky whose stars were dimmed
as lights and tinsel took their place.

© C.M.M.

Today we had our yearly Nativity play by the younger members of our congregation aided by a few of the more elderly.

This year however it wasn’t so historically accurate. We had two female magi and no shepherds (partly due to the fact she forgot her lines but I believe it was because she felt it was too cold for her sheep to travel to the nave alter, I mean manger).

It was acted out this year through mime and rhyme, Joseph had a few cups of tea and we had the  Arch angel Gabriel and the star doing a mini version of “Heads, Shoulders, Knee and Toes”.

Yet ever year I think of what it would have been like that cold evening for the expectant parents: tired, weary, fearful yet I believe, ready. Bless Mary, the young girl, and from all accounts we’ve come to realise she may have been as young as 14, who accepted the role as Mother to the Saviour of the world.

Think about the same situation into our society today, let me break it down this way: a young mother unexpectedly pregnant, a young man thrust into fatherhood before he was thinking about it. We see it all the time, young parents, but we walk past them and, I think unintentionally sometimes, sneer or look down at them, without knowing their story, how can we do this to them and yet praise our Lord and light an Advent candle today for His mother Mary, who on the face of it, were in a very similar situation.

Since the time of Boethius in the fifth century, Christian people have been encouraged to think from 16-23 December each year of the coming Messiah using his messianic titles. Before Magnificat was said or sung at Vespers during these days one of those titles would be used as an antiphon.

The Benedictine monks went on to arrange these seven antiphons with a definite purpose. If we start with the last title which we think of on this day and then take the first letter of each of the following ones in order - Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, Adonai, Sapientia - the Latin words ero cras are formed, meaning, Tomorrow, I will come.

Therefore, Jesus of Nazareth, whose coming, the celebration of whose blooming bright in the world we have been trying to prepare for throughout this Advent and whom we may address in these seven holy Messianic titles, now speaks to us, Tomorrow, I will come.

So the “O Antiphons” not only bring intensity to our Advent preparation, but bring it to a joyful conclusion.

O Emmanuel, king and lawgiver, desire of the nations, Saviour of all people, come and set us free, Lord our God.

I’m tired now. My body aches, and I feel at least seventy years old, and it’s late. My breasts are too hot, and my feet are too cold, and I can clearly remember everything that ever went wrong in my life. There is a whisper that all that lies ahead is misery.

When this started, at first, I was wrapped up in a golden glow. Everything seemed possible. Every wrong could be righted, and I thought with joy of the struggle to climb ever nearer and near the true fullness of life. The impossible was merely in invigorating challenge; the hungry fed, the little people come to their own.

And now it is night, and I ache, and even the perfectly possible seems too much of a struggle. Somewhere a voice is whispering that I have chosen a path which will break my heart. A voice is whispering I should turn back, as far as I can.

So what do the whispers think I am? All right, I’m tired, I’m down, and maybe I will never see what I dreamt of come true. But I tell you now that I’m getting up, and going on and seeing this through. Come on, give me a hand.

Heralded by Sirius and Orion,
the Sun is rising.
The longest night is past.
The shortest days of winter are done.
May the coming of the Son of God
warm our souls in the days to come
as the Sun will warm our bodies
and give cheer to our eyes.

Amen.

First post of 5: 

     I was listening to a favourite band of mine, New Found Glory, at work whilst thinking “I need to get a post up on lovebloomsbright soon when I realised this is the basis for my first post.

The song who’s name forms the title for this post came on and I started thinking, isn’t this similar to what my view of the commercial Christmas is?

The lyrics that got me were:

We all give in,
We all complain,
We sit and wait,
For things to change,
We’re waiting,
We’re waiting.All along, we follow blindly,
All along, we follow blindly

(full lyrics)

 This Christmas season I have become increasingly aware of so many people, including myself, who are getting frustrated by the commercial aspect of the season. It starts with the hints in October, then leads up, the advertising increasing, until this weekend, where the shops are full, the shoppers are fretful and people become angry and will snap at your for the smallest of reasons. When did it become like this? The pressure to buy more presents, to do more and be more is too much at times. I’m good for a small exchange of gifts after church on Tuesday.

On the same thread, I’ve noted a few newspaper articles discussing the decreasing awareness of “the reason for the season”, I think it was the Times that gave the statistic of only 1 person out of 8 who knew the story or baby Jesus.

A shocking statistic.

I often wonder why Easter isn’t the same.

Alleluia! lightburst from your untouched

womb like a flower

on the farther side

of death. The world-tree

is blossoming. Two

realms become one.

- Hildegard of Bingen, translated by Barbara Newman

The thing about angels is that you just don’t know when they will turn up.

There was I leading Choral Evensong on Sunday night it is always a joy. Yet something happened about halfway though - during the gloria at the end of the Nunc to be precise. Something happened to the music and in consequence to the worship. Was it the soaring of the sound or the steady beating of wings as they gathered around the church. I don’t know, but knew we were visited by angels for a time.

They will be back to lead our singing around the crib soon enough, no doubt.