Black Friday is the new December 8! For many years there was a great Irish tradition of the pre-Christmas shopping season beginning on the Holy Day, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary. People from all over the country would flock to Dublin or their nearest shopping town to take in the festive atmosphere. In more recent times that link between the Holy Day and the beginning of the festive season has been lost as the secular Advent has been brought forward to just after Halloween and Black Friday has become the new Holy Day of Shopping Obligation.
The challenge for people of Faith at this time of year is to somehow ‘keep’ and ‘celebrate’ the Christian season of Advent without becoming a Christmas grinch decrying the many enjoyable ‘secular’ aspects of the build up to Christmas.
Over the years one of the people who has helped me to celebrate Advent is the writer Joyce Rupp. Joyce writes beautifully about all the seasons of the year but her imagery for Advent is particularly evocative. As we look high up in the bare trees on these December days we can see little bunches of nests everywhere. Those nests are a beautiful image of Advent.
As the birds have worked hard to prepare the nest which will be welcoming for an egg and the future young life our task is to get a Christ-home ready within our own lives.
To quote Rupp: “I am trying to prepare a dwelling place for the Lord, a warm, well-hollowed, hospitable place where the life of my God will deepen and mature within me.”
A nest is a home prepared from very ordinary everyday things like twigs, dry grasses, pebbles, mud and feathers. Some birds use moss and spider webs while thrushes make their nests from a mixture of clay, decayed wood and cow dung.
Fragments
Those everyday fragments reflect what Patrick Kavanagh referred to as the “bits and pieces” of our everyday lives: “The twigs of our trials and tensions, the pebbles of our patience and pain, the straw of our struggles and strivings, the mud of our humanness and growing, the dry grass of our surrender and daily dyings.”
These are the building materials of our Advent nests where God asks us to hollow out a welcoming space for him this Christmas.
Inspired by Joyce Rupp I think of Advent as a season of nesting. My 2018 nest will be shaped by the happy and sad events of this year, the memories created on beautiful summer days, the connections with family, friends and parishioners, the loss of two close friends.
Jesus comes to be born amongst all those fragments. Emmanuel you are most welcome!
The Mile High Club
An atheist was seated next to a little girl on an airplane and he turned to her and said: “Do you want to talk? Flights go quicker if you strike up a conversation with your fellow passenger.”
The little girl replied: “What will we talk about?”
“How about why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death?” as he smiled smugly.
“Okay,” she said. “Those could be interesting topics but let me ask you a question first. A horse, a cow, and a deer all eat the same stuff – grass. Yet a deer excretes little pellets, while a cow turns out a flat patty, but a horse produces clumps. Why do you suppose that is?”
The atheist, visibly surprised by the little girl’s intelligence, thinks about it and says: “Hmmm, I have no idea.”
To which the little girl replies: “Do you really feel qualified to discuss why there is no God, or no Heaven or Hell, or no life after death, when you don’t know that?”
An Advent Prayer from Joyce Rupp
Looking high into winter trees
I see the distant nests
Cradled in arms of branches.
Nests: round, full of warmth,
Softness in the welcoming center,
A circle of earth’s tiny goodness,
Flown from the far corners,
Patiently pieced together,
And hollowed into a home.
Nest: awaiting the treasures of life,
Simple, delicate dwelling places
From which song will eventually echo
And freedom of wings give flight.
Advent has been on my mind.
Prepare the nest of heart.
Patch up the broken parts.
Place more softness in the center.
Sit and warm the home with prayer.
Give the Christ a dwelling place.