THE LAST OF ADVENT

I’m posting a day early because Thursday, December 17 marks first of the last seven days of Advent. Since around the sixth century the Christian Church in the west has recognized these last days by using what are called the Great O Antiphons with the Magnificat at Vespers. Vespers is the evening prayer service. The Magnificat is the song Mary sang in Luke 1:46-55: “My soul doth magnify the Lord.” An antiphon is a short verse sung before and after a psalm or a canticle like the Magnificat. The seven for the ending of Advent are called the “O Antiphons” because each one starts with the word “O”.  

Here are the seven antiphons in English translation with the Latin title which is the first two words of the antiphon.

17 December - O Sapientia - O Wisdom

O wisdom, coming forth from the Most High, filling all creation and reigning to the ends of the earth; come and teach us the way  of truth.

18 December - O Adonai - O Lord of Lords

O Lord of Lords, and ruler of the House of Israel, you appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush, and gave him the law on Sinai: come with your outstretched arm and ransom us.

19 December - O Radix Jesse - O Root of Jesse

O root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the nations; kings will keep silence before you for whom the nations long; come and save us and delay no longer.

20 December - O Clavis David - O Key of David

O key of David and scepter of the House of Israel; you open and none can shut; you shut and none can open: come and free the captives from prison, and break down the walls of death.

21 December - O Oriens - O Morning Star

O morning star, splendour of the light eternal and bright sun of righteousness: come and bring light to those who dwell in darkness and walk in the shadow of death.

22 December - O Rex Gentium - O King of Nations

O king of the nations, you alone can fulfil their desires: cornerstone, binding all together: come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust of the earth.

23 December - O Emmanuel

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, hope of the nations and their saviour: come and save us, O Lord our God.

Each antiphon address God by a different title and asks him to come–that’s what Advent means.

Recently I discovered something odd about the antiphons. If you arrange the Latin titles in reverse order, the first letters after the O forms a Latin acrostic

O Emmanuel

O Rex gentium

O Oriens

O Clavis

O Rex gentium

O Adonai

O Sapientia

ERO CRAS

Which means “I will be tomorrow” and indeed the day after the last antiphon is Christmas Eve.

Last comment. Some sharp people will have found the O Antiphons familiar even though they haven’t used them. In the middle ages they were arranged into a hymn with a refrain. We know it in English as O come, O come, Emmanuel.

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appear.

    Rejoice! Rejoice!

    Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

It’s time to pray now so I have to go. Maybe I’ll try singing the antiphon in Latin. Then again, it’s been a while since I had to read Gregorian chant notation.

Doesn’t matter. God understands every language and even no language.

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne

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ADVENT MAN: JOHN THE BAPTIST

John the Baptist has long been one of the figures associated with Advent since he was the one who pointed the way to Christ. This coming Sunday, the Third Sunday in Advent the story pf John baptizing in the Jordan will be read from Luke. While the same account appears in Mark and Matthew, it has a different context in Luke, for this Gospel tells us John’s background–how the angel Gabriel told Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth that they would have a son. No sooner is that story finished than another one begins. Once again Gabriel delivers the news of a coming birth, but this time the news comes to Mary the betrothed wife of Joseph. The child is Jesus. At the end of the story we learn that Elizabeth and Mary are relatives, so John and Jesus are also relatives.

The revelation changes the context for the Baptism of Jesus by John. As relatives John and Jesus must have known each other. And there’s the frustration of the Gospel account. We know absolutely nothing about the relationship between John and Jesus. Some scholars have wondered if Jesus were a disciple of John’s at some point since at least one of Jesus’ disciples, Andrew, had also been John’s disciple. That’s all speculation.

Human imagination being what it is, people have filled in the blanks in the relationship between Jesus and John with their own ideas. One of my favorite flights of fancy is Sir John Everett Millais’s painting “Christ in the House of His Parents (1850). Millais was one the nineteenth century English painters of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood–a group that rebelled against academic painting of their day. Modern artists often regard the Pre-Raphaelites as terribly quaint and old-fashioned, but they regarded themselves as the cutting edge of art. Here’s the famous painting.

A young Jesus stands at the center about to kiss his mother. Reaching out to him is Joseph and behind him Ann, the mother of Mary. A closer look reveals there is a puncture wound in Jesus’ hand. Some of the blood has fallen on his foot. Immediately, we see the symbolism of the crucifixion. 

To the right is another child–John.

We recognize him because of the animal skin he’s wearing. He’s also carrying a basin of water, a symbol of baptism. Did John ever visit at Joseph’s carpenter shop? Who knows.

We do know something about Millais’s painting: it was vilified by the critics. They hated the realistic portrayal of something religious.  Perhaps the most severe criticism came from none other than Charles Dickens:

You behold the interior of a carpenter’s shop. In the foreground of that carpenter’s shop is a hideous, wry-necked, blubbering, red-headed boy, in a bed-gown, who appears to have received a poke in the hand, from the stick of another boy with whom he has been playing in an adjacent gutter, and to be holding it up for the contemplation of a kneeling woman, so horrible in her ugliness, that (supposing it were possible for any human creature to exist for a moment with that dislocated throat) she would stand out from the rest of the company as a Monster, in the vilest cabaret in France, or the lowest ginshop in England. Two almost naked carpenters, master and journeyman, worthy companions of this agreeable female, are working at their trade; a boy, with some small flavor of humanity in him, is entering with a vessel of water; and nobody is paying any attention to a snuffy old woman who seems to have mistaken that shop for the tobacconist’s next door, and to be hopelessly waiting at the counter to be served with half an ounce of her favourite mixture. Wherever it is possible to express ugliness of feature, limb, or attitude, you have it expressed. Such men as the carpenters might be undressed in any hospital where dirty drunkards, in a high state of varicose veins, are received. Their very toes have walked out of Saint Giles’s.
"Old Lamps for New Ones." Household Words 12 (15 Jun. 1850)

It strikes me odd that a man who could write with such gritty realism should be appalled by the realism of a painting. It might be comprehensible if Dickens had been a very traditional-minded Christian who took offense at portraying Jesus in such humble mein, but he wasn’t an orthodox Christian. To be sure he had respect for Jesus. Remember that wonderful scene in A Christmas Carol when Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim return from church on Christmas Day?

"And how did little Tim behave?'' asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content. 

"As good as gold,'' said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.''

Yet the description of the Angel’s message to the shepherds in Dickens’s Life of Our Lord very much shows his Unitarian leanings.

There is a child born to-day in the city of Bethlehem near here, who will grow up to be so good that God will love him as his own son; and he will teach men to love one another, and not to quarrel and hurt one another; and his name will be Jesus Christ; and people will put that name in their prayers, because they will know God loves it, and will know that they should love it too.

Long, long ago after watching a movie version of A Christmas Carol, I realized how it skirted the essence of Christmas. To be sure there were themes of good-will, kindness, generosity and other commendable qualities. And Scrooge does put in an appearance at church on Christmas Day, but we are left to wonder what it is they are celebrating.

It is much like that favorite Christmas carol, “It came upon a Midnight Clear.” You sing through the whole song with almost no hint that it has something to do with the birth of Christ. The closest it gets is the first stanza, third line: “Peace on the earth, good will to men, From heaven’s all-gracious king.” Any surprise that the author Edward H. Sears was also a Unitarian, an American contemporary of Dickens?

Well, I started off on John the Baptist, and I’ll end there with the wonderful Advent hymn by Charles Coffin, Jordanis oras praevia translated “On Jordan’s Bank”

        1. On Jordan's bank the Baptist's cry
        Announces that the Lord is nigh;
        Come, then, and hearken, for he brings
        Glad tidings from the King of kings.

        2. Then cleansed by every Christian breast
        And furnished for so great a Guest.
        Yea, let us each our hearts prepare
        For Christ to come and enter there.

        3. For Thou art our Salvation, Lord,
        Our Refuge, and our great Reward.
        Without Thy grace our souls must fade
        And wither like a flower decayed.

        4. Lay on the sick Thy healing hand
        And make the fallen strong to stand;
        Show us the glory of Thy face
        Till beauty springs in every place.

        5. All praise, eternal Son, to Thee
        Who advent sets Thy people free,
        Whom, with the Father, we adore
        And Holy Ghost forevermore.


May the One who is to come bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne












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ADVENT SERENDIPITY

Here’s a happy coincidence I could never have anticipated. I was watching the new Star Trek movie listening to the director and who not else talk about the film. During a scene on the planet Vulcan, someone mentioned that the set was actually a church in a cemetery. I immediately knew the location because that very morning I had been looking at pictures of that church in a new book I had purchased. The book: Craftsman Style. The church: Skyrose Chapel in Whittier, California, designed by Fay Jones.

So you can see what I’m talking about, here’s a shot that appeared in the movie with Spok.

And here is a view from the balcony toward the front of the church.

If the church picture had been shot upwards toward the ceiling from the back of the balcony, it would have looked like the Spok scene.

Here's a picture of the balcony. This is used at closer range in some other Vulcan scenes (Spok with his mother).

And for good measure, here’s the outside of the chapel.

I admire the work of the late E. Fay Jones who was for a short time a student of Frank Lloyd Wright. Jones is noted for his church designs, most notably Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

He is a contemporary architect so it is rather strange that his work would be included in a book on the Craftsman Style which was primarily late 19th-early 20th century. The book, however, has several modern buildings in it, so I guess Jones’s work could be included.

What I pondered in all of this was that when the film makers wanted and other-worldly set, they chose a church.  Although a lot of churches are based on the model of a theater (I’ve been reading a book on that also, When the Church became Theatre ), other churches are meant to transport a person to a heavenly realm. Fay’s designs are like that.

In Star Trek the Vulcan people are devoted to pure logic. And yet there is something spiritual about this devotion. As a matter of fact, the Vulcan’s are the only humanoids that seem to have a spiritual dimension. Does that sound contradictory for a scientific culture? It needn’t be. Science can lead a person to marvel at the universe, or it can lead a person to treat the universe as mere raw materials needing to be transformed into an object of practical use. If you think about it, both a Walmart store and Skyrose Chapel are the product of scientific engineering. One, however, is a ugly, utilitarian object, a temple to “stuff.” The other is a thing of beauty and inspiration, a temple of a very different sort.  When future archeologists dig up our artifacts, will they conclude we were a spiritual culture or a material culture. I know where I’d place my bet.

Many years ago when I was starting out on my own and bought Christmas cards, I noticed there was about a 50-50 split between sacred designs and secular designs. Now it’s hard to find anything with a religious theme. And sometimes the religious cards are bizarre like Santa Claus kneeling at the manger.

A frequent concern of mine in the season of Advent is the confusion between Christmas celebrating the birth of Christ and The Winter Holidays celebrating I-don’t-know-what. Excess, maybe. The Holidays are winning. I am saddened by the many well-meaning Christians who think the solution is to make sure clerks in stores say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays” when they ring up your sale. Good night! All the buying and selling has absolutely nothing to do with the birth of the Savior. Nor does hanging things on fake plastic tree-like objects. Nor do Holiday Spirits in 1.5 liter bottles. Why should we want to attach Christ’s Holy Name to that nonsense?

In the Star Trek film, Spok’s father tells him he will have to choose between following his human or Vulcan nature. Maybe we have a similar choice, to follow our material nature or our spiritual nature. In the end, which will benefit us more, an hour in a place like Walmart or an hour in a place like Skyrose Chapel?

Stir up our hearts, O Lord,
to prepare the paths of thine Only-begotten Son:
that we may worthily serve thee
with hearts purified by His coming:
Who livest and reignest with God the Father
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
ever one God, world without end. Amen.

–Collect for the Second Sunday of Advent

May the Lord bless you on your journey and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne







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FIRST VESPERS, FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Creator of the stars of night,
Your people’s everlasting light
Jesus, Redeemer, save us all,
And hear your people when they call.

7th century hymn translated by John Mason Neale

Advent begins again tonight, Saturday. It is a time for reflection, hopefully a respite from the insanity of what people call “The Holidays.”

I am reading a favorite Christmas book, Jostein Gaarder The Christmas Mystery.  Although it has a young boy as the protagonist, I’m not sure it is really a book for children. It would work for teens, but they might be put off by a little girl chasing a lamb. The truth is this is a very complex, sophisticated book. There is the story of Joachim and his family who each day open a door in the mysterious Advent calendar. There is the story of Elisabet Hansen who travels from Norway to Bethlehem and from the present back to the time of the birth of Christ collecting on her pilgrimage four shepherds, three Wisemen, five angels, Quirinius the Governor of Syria, Augustus the Emperor of Rome, an inn keeper, and seven sheep. There is also the story strange flower seller, John, who made the calendar. Then there is the story of Elisabeth Hansen who may be Elisabet Tebasile who may be the Elisabet of the Advent calendar story even though she says she isn’t.

Confused? What do you expect from a book by a former philosophy teacher. Here’s an example of the story. Watch carefully what the Wiseman Caspar says. The first speaker is the Angel Impuriel, something of a wise-guy.

“God created only one Adam and one Eve as well. They were little children who played hide and seek in the Garden of Eden. For there was no point creating a Paradise if there were no children who could play hide and seek in it. But then those two little rascals ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and they grew up. That was the end of playing in the world, but only for a short while. Soon grownup Adam and grownup Eve had children of their own, and the grandchildren. In this way, God made sure there would always be plenty of children in the world. There is no point in creating the whole world if there are no little children to keep on discovering it. That’s how God goes on creating the world over and over again. Her will never quite finish, for new children keep on arriving, and they discover the world for the very first time, Yes indeed!”

The two Wise Men looked at one another.

‘Well, well!” said Balthazar.

And Caspar added, “This explanation is perhaps a little dubious. But all good stories may be understood in at least two or three ways, and only one story can be told at a time.”

All good stories can be understood in at least two or three ways–that is a deep idea, but essential for anyone who wishes to understand Holy Scripture.

Around 2700 years ago the prophet Isaiah spoke to Israel.

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us;

authority rests upon his shoulders;

and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

His authority shall grow continually,

and there shall be endless peace

for the throne of David and his kingdom.

He will establish and uphold it with justice

 and with righteousness

from this time onward and forevermore.

The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Isaiah 9:6-7

The people of Israel understood this in one way. A few hundred years later the Jews in exile understood it in another way. And a few hundred years later Christians understood it in still another as a prophecy of the coming of Jesus. That is the beauty and mystery of God’s revelation, always the same, but always new.

I don’t expect to be chasing a little lamb on my Advent pilgrimage, but who knows. May the Lord bless you on your journey and gret you on your arrival.

Come, Lord Jesus!



The picture at the head of the blog is of a quilt on the blog FRIARside Chats Hosted by the Office of Vocations, Franciscan Friars (OFM), Province of St. Barbara, serving the western USA
friarsidechats.blogspot.com/





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