Benediction Reflection 7

Advent

A friend of mine recently wrote a blog post saying that he feels like a bit of an Advent Grinch at the moment.

Partly, he has been irritated by the agitation of church people already bemoaning the bastardisation of Christmas in our wider culture. He points out quite accurately that this is part of the wider decline of Christendom in Western society, which has its good points as well as its bad. Regardless of that, the ship has sailed. Christmas doesn’t carry much Christian connotation for most people in our wider society.

Sometimes, amongst this Christmas grumbling, well meaning Christians are at risk of getting so caught up in the “Christmas isn’t Christian anymore” that they are forgetting to embrace the season of Advent.

Sometimes, even in the Church Advent is not being properly lived into. It becomes the ‘run-up’ to Christmas. Some of this is unavoidable - my friends in school chaplaincy have to do their Christmas services now, because students have left school by the time Christmas Day actually arrives!

But where we can, there is immense value in appreciating the distinctiveness of the Advent season.

Advent is traditionally about Death, Judgment, Heaven, and Hell. There is a delightful illustration of these themes by the Anglo-Catholic artist Enid Chadwick—I might see if I can prevail upon Fr Scott to include the image in the next Messenger.

In a sense, we have the perfect run-up to Advent by observing November as the month of the Dead, as this parish has done quite thoroughly. We have observed an All Souls requiem, the regular monthly requiem for those whose year’s mind falls in November, as well as marking Remembrance Day on the 11th, and a requiem mass for those who died ‘unquiet deaths’ was observed on the 14th.

In my Anglicare role, I also participated in our annual Walk Through The Darkness event on Saturday the 22nd, remembering loved ones lost to suicide, and supporting those who have been bereaved in this way.

All of this commemoration of the dead is sobering but important. St Benedict urges his followers to,

RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict in English with Notes Chapter 4. The Tools for Good Works

Day by day remind mind yourself that you are going to die

And the intertwined themes of death and darkness are likewise central to the daily collect used throughout Advent:

The Book of Common Prayer: The Texts of 1549, 1559, and 1662 The First Sunday in Advent

Almighty God,

give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness,

and put upon us the armour of light now in the time of this mortal life

(in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility;)

that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious Majesty,

to judge both the quick and the dead,

we may rise to the life immortal,

through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost,

now and ever.

Amen.

Death is a common preoccupation of liturgical prayers. We said the Litany before Mass this morning, which included, ‘from violence, murder and dying unprepared, good Lord deliver us’ and, ‘in the hour of our death and at the day of judgment, good Lord deliver us” Likewise, when we pray the Hail Mary, we call upon Our Lady to pray for us, ‘now and in the hour of our death.’

It might seem strange that November and the December weeks of Advent are so preoccupied by death and darkness when Christmas is about birth and new life as the Christ Child enters the world. But childbirth has always been associated with the risk of death (for both mother and child), and moments of great joy are often mingled with awareness of loss and sadness too.

This was the case when my younger boy George was born. Immediately after we held our newborn baby in our arms, my wife was overcome by grief, conscious that we couldn’t share this moment with her Dad who had died unexpectedly only a month earlier.

With this in mind, I think the most “Adventy” of early Christmas celebrations are the so-called ‘Blue Christmas’ services held in some churches, which acknowledge with pastoral sensitivity that Christmas can be a difficult time for some, holding darkness as well as light.

Perhaps at this point in the year, there are heavy and dark things you are carrying. These things are not to be ignored. Advent is the time to think about them, to acknowledge the darkness, and to bring those dark things into the healing light of Christ, perhaps tonight in his Sacramental presence, or perhaps in a Christmas service you attend.

As we now pause to adore our Lord in the Sacrament, to meditate, reflect, and pray in his presence, I’ll leave you with a poem (originally in Latin) from a medieval pilgrim visiting St Benedict’s cave. This pilgrim mused,

If you are seeking the light, Benedict, why do you choose the dark grotto? The grotto does not offer the light you are seeking.

But continue in the darkness to seek the shining light. Because only on a dark night do the stars shine.