Happy Christmas!

Maurice Morel
Mixed media drawing
via Sacred Art Meditations


O Holy Night!
The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviours birth;
Long lay the world in sin and error pining, 
'Til He appeared and the soul felt its worth. 
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, 
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn;
Fall on your knees,
Oh, hear the angels voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born!
O night, O holy night,
O night divine!

Led by the light of faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand;
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here came the wise men from Orient land.
The King of kings lay thus in lowly manger,
In all our trials born to be our Friend;
He knows our need, 
To our weakness is no stranger. 
Behold your King, before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, before Him lowly bend!

Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace; 
Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name;
Christ is the Lord,
Oh, praise His name forever!
His powr and glory evermore proclaim!
His powr and glory evermore proclaim!

Merry Christmas,from our home to yours, dear ones.

Christmas Eve (art meditations and playlist for the final night of Advent)

"Advent is about learning to wait. It is about not having to know exactly what is coming tomorrow, only that whatever it is, it is of the essence of sanctification for us. Every piece of it, some hard, some uplifiting, is sign of the work of God alive in us. We are becoming as we go. We learn in Advent to stay in the present, knowing that only the present well lived can possibly lead us to the fullness of life." (Chittister)




During Advent I'll forego my weekly Buy More Art posts in order to share almost-daily meditations of Scripture, hymns, and art reflecting the alternate narrative and subversive time of waiting in hope for the Christ who came, the Christ who will come again and the Christ now among us.

Won't you join me?

Luke 1:39-45

English Standard Version (ESV)

Mary Visits Elizabeth

³⁹ In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, ⁴⁰ and she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, ⁴² and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!⁴³ And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴ For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

Visitation
James B. Janknegt

Luke 1:57-66
English Standard Version (ESV)

The Birth of John the Baptist

⁵⁷ Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. ⁵⁸ And her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her. ⁵⁹ And on the eighth day they came to circumcise the child. And they would have called him Zechariah after his father, ⁶⁰ but his mother answered, “No; he shall be called John.” ⁶¹ And they said to her, “None of your relatives is called by this name.” ⁶² And they made signs to his father, inquiring what he wanted him to be called. ⁶³ And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And they all wondered. ⁶⁴ And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed, and he spoke, blessing God. ⁶⁵ And fear came on all their neighbors. And all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea, ⁶⁶ and all who heard them laid them up in their hearts, saying, “What then will this child be?” For the hand of the Lord was with him.

Konstantin Kalynovych
Etching via Sacred Art Meditations

Mary's Song of Praise: The Magnificat

Luke 1:46-56

⁴⁶ And Mary said,

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
⁴⁷     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
⁴⁸ for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
    For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
⁴⁹ for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
    and holy is his name.
⁵⁰ And his mercy is for those who fear him
    from generation to generation.
⁵¹ He has shown strength with his arm;
    he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
⁵² he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
    and exalted those of humble estate;
⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things,
    and the rich he has sent away empty.
⁵⁴ He has helped his servant Israel,
    in remembrance of his mercy,
⁵⁵ as he spoke to our fathers,
    to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

⁵⁶ And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.

The Annunciation
Daniel Bonnell

Mary's Song

Blue homespun and the bend of my breast
keep warm this small hot naked star
fallen to my arms. (Rest...
you who have had so far
to come.) Now nearness satisfies
the body of God sweetly. Quiet he lies
whose vigor hurled
a universe. He sleeps
whose eyelids have not closed before.
His breath (so slight it seems
no breath at all) once ruffled the dark deeps
to sprout a world.
Charmed by doves' voices, the whisper of straw,
he dreams,
hearing no music from his other spheres.
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes
he is curtailed
who overflowed all skies,
all years.
Older than eternity, now he
is new. Now native to earth as I am, nailed
to my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
blind in my womb to know my darkness ended,
brought to this birth
for me to be new-born,
and for him to see me mended
I must seen him torn.

-- Luci Shaw

The Advent playlist I've been enjoying the past four weeks.

A blessed Christmas Eve to you, dear ones.

Day 23 (art meditations + suggested resources for Advent)

"Advent is about learning to wait. It is about not having to know exactly what is coming tomorrow, only that whatever it is, it is of the essence of sanctification for us. Every piece of it, some hard, some uplifiting, is sign of the work of God alive in us. We are becoming as we go. We learn in Advent to stay in the present, knowing that only the present well lived can possibly lead us to the fullness of life." (Chittister)





During Advent I'll forego my weekly Buy More Art posts in order to share almost-daily meditations of Scripture, hymns, and art reflecting the alternate narrative and subversive time of waiting in hope for the Christ who came, the Christ who will come again and the Christ now among us.

Won't you join me?

Fourth Sunday of Advent:

"In the first centuries the Church had a beautiful custom of praying seven great prayers calling afresh on Christ to come, calling him by the mysterious titles he has in Isaiah, calling to him; O Wisdom. O Root! O Key, O Light! come to us!"  (Malcolm Guite)

December 23 - O Emmanuel (God With Us)

Isaiah 7:14:

"The Lord himself will give you this sign: the Virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel."

Matthew 1:23: 

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.”

The original antiphon in Latin and English (via Malcolm Guite)

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster,
exspectatio Gentium, et Salvator earum:
veni ad salvandum nos, Domine, Deus noster

O Emmanuel, our king and our lawgiver,
the hope of the nations and their Saviour:
Come and save us, O Lord our God

[the verse from the familiar carol]

O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appears.

Listen to the original antiphon sung in Latin.

O Emmanuel re-written by Malcolm Guite

O Emmanuel

O come, O come, and be our God-with-us
O long-sought With-ness for a world without,
O secret seed, O hidden spring of light.
Come to us Wisdom, come unspoken Name
Come Root, and Key, and King, and holy Flame,
O quickened little wick so tightly curled,
Be folded with us into time and place,
Unfold for us the mystery of grace
And make a womb of all this wounded world.
O heart of heaven beating in the earth,
O tiny hope within our hopelessness
Come to be born, to bear us to our birth,
To touch a dying world with new-made hands
And make these rags of time our swaddling bands.

(Listen to the author's reading of this sonnet.)

listen to ‘O Emmanuel’ on Audioboo

Madonna and Child
Nancy Goes
CIVA exhibit, Seeing the Savior

O Emmanuel rewritten by Thom Turner at Everyday Liturgy

O Emmanuel

O God-who-is-with-us, our coming king, composer of justice,
the nations will gather and bow down to you
who will come to judge the living and the dead.
Come now and save us, our God in the flesh.

Song of response: O Come, O Come Emmanuel (three, because I couldn't pick just one)




Suggested Resources for Advent:

Christmas Hymns by Jason Harrod

Songs for Christmas by Sufjan Stevens

Salvation is Created by Bifrost Arts

Now it's your turn!  What art are you enjoying this season? 

 Tell us about it in the  comments below.  

If you've written your own post, share the link.

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"I keep expecting loud and impressive events to convince me and others of God's saving powers. Our temptation is to be distracted by them. When I have no eyes for the small signs of God's presence ... I will always remain tempted to despair." -- Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen, Gracias! A Latin American Journal - 1983 (via Diary of An Arts Pastor)

Day 22 (art meditations + suggested resources for Advent)

"Advent is about learning to wait. It is about not having to know exactly what is coming tomorrow, only that whatever it is, it is of the essence of sanctification for us. Every piece of it, some hard, some uplifiting, is sign of the work of God alive in us. We are becoming as we go. We learn in Advent to stay in the present, knowing that only the present well lived can possibly lead us to the fullness of life." (Chittister)




During Advent I'll forego my weekly Buy More Art posts in order to share almost-daily meditations of Scripture, hymns, and art reflecting the alternate narrative and subversive time of waiting in hope for the Christ who came, the Christ who will come again and the Christ now among us.

Won't you join me?


Third Saturday of Advent:

"In the first centuries the Church had a beautiful custom of praying seven great prayers calling afresh on Christ to come, calling him by the mysterious titles he has in Isaiah, calling to him; O Wisdom. O Root! O Key, O Light! come to us!"  (Malcolm Guite)

December 22 - O Emmanuel (O King of the Gentiles,  O King of All the Nations)

Genesis 12:1-3:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Isaiah 2:4: 

"He shall judge between the nations, and impose terms on many peoples. They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; one nation shall not raise the sword against another, nor shall they train for war again."

Revelation 15:3: 

"And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!"

The original antiphon in Latin and English (via Malcolm Guite)

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, and their desire,
the cornerstone making both one, Come and save the human race,which you fashioned from clay

[the verse from the familiar carol]

Oh, come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Oh, bid our sad divisions cease,
And be yourself our King of Peace. 

Listen to the original antiphon sung in Latin.

O Rex Gentium re-written by Malcolm Guite

O Rex Gentium

O King of our desire whom we despise,
King of the nations never on the throne,
Unfound foundation, cast-off cornerstone,
Rejected joiner, making many one,
You have no form or beauty for our eyes,
A King who comes to give away his crown,
A King within our rags of flesh and bone.
We pierce the flesh that pierces our disguise,
For we ourselves are found in you alone.
Come to us now and find in us your throne,
O King within the child within the clay,
O hidden King who shapes us in the play
Of all creation. Shape us for the day
Your coming Kingdom comes into its own.

(Listen to the author's reading of this sonnet.)

listen to ‘O Rex Gentium’ on Audioboo

The Virgin and the Child
Lou Houng-Nien,  early 20th century

O Emmanuel rewritten byThom Turner at Everyday Liturgy

O King of the Gentiles

O King of the Gentiles, the object of our desire,
you are the rock on which the church has been built.
You graft your chosen people together in one body.
Come now and save us who are but dirt and clay.

A Song of Response: Savior of the Nations, Come (lyrics here)




Suggested Resources for Advent:

Poetry, Reflection and Song to Begin the Season of Advent: A beautiful Advent service formed by the liturgy of the O Antiphons and Malcolm Guite's sonnets (Grace Episcopal Church, Bainbridge Island, Washington - 2009)

Sounding the Seasons: Poetry for the Christian Year by Malcolm Guite

By All Adored, Advent and Christmas album from Cardiphonia

Now it's your turn!  What art are you enjoying this season? 

 Tell us about it in the  comments below.  

If you've written your own post, share the link.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

"I keep expecting loud and impressive events to convince me and others of God's saving powers. Our temptation is to be distracted by them. When I have no eyes for the small signs of God's presence ... I will always remain tempted to despair." -- Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen, Gracias! A Latin American Journal (1983)

 (via Diary of An Arts Pastor)