Advent descended on us in a hush, like a soft blanket muffling the harshness of winter. The 3 days of fog in my area was a thick pea soup, sometimes not burning off until 9:am., and it made driving to mass quite an adventure, but... ahh... There's nothing like the soft, quiet mystery of fog; and somehow it seemed a perfect way to enter into the beauty of Advent. A perfect metaphor for the return inward, a return to the silence. Softening the sharp edges of our view, it causes us to search the terrain of our interior. For some reason, I've been drawn to pondering the concept of the anticipatory aspect of Advent, how our whole lives are advent, and to the idea of holding, bearing that attitude of anticipation is our life's purpose. Advent is a way of life. For my reading this Advent, I've been blessed with coming across a book of sermons and prison writings by the priest and martyr Alfred Delp. Called "Advent of the Heart", it has many deeply moving and profound reflections on life and this aspect of waiting. Here are some selections:
"... the golden threads running between Heaven and earth during this season reach us; the threads that give the world a hint of the abundance to which it is called, the abundance of which it is capable."
"Advent is a time of promise, not yet the fulfillment."
"Advent means a heart that is awake and ready"
Fr. Delp speaks of the longing, yearning we must bear in response to the advent aspect of our lives, how we cannot allow ourselves to be tricked into the false satisfactions of our world, and that we must trust what God has promised. It's pretty poignant stuff, and much of his writing was while awaiting death in a Gestapo prison.
More later...
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