Watch and Wait

"Watch". That is the last word of today's Gospel for the First Sunday of Advent. As November turns to December, I am watching the evening rain turn to snow.

Wait.The cliche in the Midwest: "If you don't like the weather, just wait." I believe that is the message as seasons, both calendar and liturgical---physical and spiritual--- change and move on: times are always changing, nothing stays the same.

We talk much of the cycle of the seasons ("the circle game") and compare it to a carousel. But we never return to where we were. Neither the earth nor its creatures are the same as one year, or ten years, or a century ago. Some changes we attempt to fashion ourselves, usually at the expense of great energy and frustration. The profound changes are the ones that come to us unannounced, as the Gospel says, in the night. Watch!

Wait! But not passively, but with attention to the signs and symbols around us. {In between the passing clouds tonight, the moon, Venus, and Jupiter are forming a rare triangle in the sky.)Watch!



Yes, the seasons form a circle. But it is not a carousel, but more like a helix, a circular staircase. Always moving, but both up and down?

We breath Advent in. We breath Advent out. We wait. We watch.

The Sweet Season

This illustration graphically depicts the meaning of Advent. Again and again Christ is portrayed in the liturgy as the rising Sun. The comparison is a good one, for there is nothing that can quite equal the power of the sun's rays to quicken, warm, and bless. Man, whether considered individually or collectively, is represented by the city of Jerusalem (to which he is often compared), which awaits its Redeemer and will reach the zenith of its development only on His arrival. Mary is represented as the lily because of her Immaculate Conception, as the morning star out of which rises the Sun of Justice, and as the one who crushes the head of the serpent.

Rossini's "Petite Messe": " Kyrie" and "Agnus Dei"

Gioachino Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle was written in 1863, "the last", the composer called it, "of my pêchés de vieillesse" (sins of old age).

The witty composer, who produced little for public hearing during his long retirement at Passy, prefaced his mass—characterized, apocryphally by Napoleon III, as neither little nor solemn, nor particularly liturgical— with the words

"Good God—behold completed this poor little Mass—is it indeed sacred music [la musique sacrée] that I have just written, or merely some damned music [la sacré musique]? You know well, I was born for comic opera. Little science, a little heart, that is all. So may you be blessed, and grant me Paradise!"




At first listen, i dismissed it as a curiosity, but I've grown to enjoy the complete mass. I also like how unpretentious the piece is compared to other "sacred" compositions of the time. Much like Rossini's attempt at bargaining for "Paradise."
[note: if you're buying it, make sure you get the non-orchestra arrangement.]

Sometimes you wonder,e.g. the "Crucifixus", whether Rossini knew or cared what the words meant. But other moments are precious, like this "Agnus Dei"

Autumn, and there's a leaving in the air

I thank you God for this most amazing day,
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees,
and for the blue dream of sky
and for everything which is natural,
which is infinite,
which is
yes..

e.e. cummings

Spring has its hundred flowers,
Autumn its moon,
Summer has its cooling breezes,
Winter its snow.
If you allow no idle concerns
To weigh on your heart,
Your whole life will be one
Perennial good season.




...from The Golden Age of Zen

Buddha envisions.
Abraham embraces.
Mohammad inscribes.
Christ embodies.

The "Day of the Dead" Altar at St. Nick's

The people of my past walk beside me, not behind me,
singing their songs to remind me
of who I was and what I once called home---
to point me to the future that is mine alone.
They stay not far away.
But it's up to me to control
the hold they have on my soul.


There is something fitting and more than coincidental that this year we turn the clocks back, in recognition of increasing hours of darkness, on the feast of All Souls, or "Dia de los Muertos." The whole "hallowed eve" rite,I am told, had to do with entering the "dark half" of the year. The Celts who depended so much on knowledge of seasons, paid great reverence to light and darkness. In the morning, the men would doff their caps to the rising sun, and in the evening the ladies would bend a knee to the moon on the horizon.
As the great Welshman Dylan Thomas urged, "Rage! Rage against the dying of the light!"

In our age we have done everything we can to push back darkness... ugly artificial lights are everywhere, in a kind of florescent purgatory, we being the poor souls, afraid of the dark.