O Adonai! In the Fire of the Burning Bush

 Tonight we meditate on the second of the Advent O Antiphons: O Adonai! O Lord and Deliverer!

O Adonai!

We cry to you across the endless ages!

We call you by the name for the Name,

that only the One beyond all names may bear, O Hashem!

We seek from you our own exodus 

from the cold and hard world 

we have built within ourselves,

and hurt so many others by.

O Adonai!

We yearn for your deliverance! 

Free us from the slavery to that false self 

that is but a shadow of our souls

Let us put off the sandals that insulate us 

from the deep throbbing heart of Mother Earth 

and step into your Holy Presence 

which is everywhere,

and there,

bow down before 

the wonder of it all.

O Adonai!

Send to us the Angel of the Burning Bush!

May he call out to us, 

so lost in our own thoughts 

and worries 

and dreams,

that we may 

at last 

remember 

the holiness of the ground 

we stand on in every place 

and at every time

for our where and when

rests always in

your divine 

Now.

O Adonai!

Draw us to yourself, O Holy One!

Lead us on that pilgrim path

from the depths of our selfishness 

to the heights of the mountain of compassion

and emptiness.

Bid us enter into the cloud, 

that dissembles thought 

and pierces the proud heart 

so to open the soul to the 

truest of loves. 

O Adonai!

Let us hear the thunder in the void!

There at the summit and centre of our souls 

inscribe your new Law of Love 

upon the tablets of our hearts

in letters of divine fire!

O Adonai!

At hour of sunset 

and star rise we call to you!

Hear the chant of your Church,

echoing the long and faithful love

of Abraham, and Isaac and their storied

generations.

Listen to these ancient invocations!

Look not on us,

nor on our readiness,

Look instead on she who is,

the Lady of Israel, 

the Daughter of Zion,

the Queen of Heaven!

She who is 

our burning bush, 

always aflame

but ever unconsumed,

who holds 

within her sacred womb 

the mystery 

of the Name made flesh!

Hear us sing her new song of deliverance

Hear the mystery magnified in woman 

who in that holiest of births

brings about

our deliverer,

and invites

our exodus

home.

O Adonai!

"Magnificat anima mea Dominum!" 

We cry with her,

and in her holy 

burning words 

we hear the song of her people, 

our ancestors of spirit, echoed anew

"Ashira L’Adonai ki ga’oh ga’ah!"

And so we sing 

with all the generations 

this Advent night!

"O Adonai,

and leader of the House of Israel,

who appeared to Moses 

in the fire of the burning bush

and gave him the law on Sinai:

Come and redeem us 

with an outstretched arm!"

O Wisdom: O Sapientia!

 O Wisdom! 

O Sapientia!

This night the Church turns toward the second half of its Advent journey as with eight great cries from the aching heart of humanity we express the ancient longing for wholeness, 

for liberation, 

for union with the divine, 

for grace… 

Let us pray these ancient invocations of the eight Golden Nights together...

From the long cold of our Edenic exile we turn towards the sky and kindle hope looking into the dark for a light beyond all night and we sing the ancient invocations of Presence and power:

The O Antiphons!

Those that sing the deepest magic from before the dawn of time…

 

So at sundown each evening from now until Christmas Eve as we pray the Magnificat of Mary we will call on the One who comes… 

The One who descends that we may ascend… 

who goes forth from the Father that we may return with Him to the houses of light… 

We will call on Him by names so ancient they are written in words of fire in the hidden heart of Creation their lightening letters breathed forth from the Divine as transcendent touches that set souls longing and hearts bursting as their litany of longing is intoned

Tonight we call on Him by the ancient name by which He is known to all people of all times and places! 

O Sapientia! O Wisdom! 

We cry out from the heart of our foolishness, from the loss of our shallow knowing, from our listing and lying about the truth and the wound at the heart of all things…

O make us wise… 

Enlighten our darkness…

Long sought and hidden, 

yearned for by sages and saints, 

desired by philosophers and poets 

down the ages Wisdom comes… 

so often lost… 

so often found… 

so needed today.

Pouring forth its divine energies 

as Hochma, 

as Hagia Sophia, 

as God at play, 

as a young girl in the full exultation of wonder, 

as a woman birthing beauty and blessing, 

as an eldress sage where being and experience are fused at last into 

Wisdom… 

For Wisdom 

is revealed in the heart, 

and in the womb, 

in the mother 

and in the child,

for in no other way could 

so close a union, 

an inter-weaving, 

an inter-being, 

an incarnation 

be revealed.

For the One who comes

is already

and always

here.

Hidden yet always present…  

Heard thundering from the cloud, 

from the mountaintop, 

in the burning of the bush, 

on the edge of the breeze 

in the quiet rhythm of the breath, 

and in the rippled

waters

of the womb.

And so, as the tide of sunset washes this world 

in the dark ocean of night,

we breathe and stand for the Maiden Mother’s song

And chant our first invocation…

To the Word, 

to Wisdom,

to the One who is…

to the One who comes...

“O Wisdom

Who proceedeth from the mouth of the Most High, 

Who fills the Universe and holds all things together in a strong yet gentle manner,

O come to teach us the way of truth!”

Greening

 The Greening

The Greening.

December cold moon 

wanes and waxes,

sharp edged as ice

like a peephole cut 

in the night sky

she looks into 

a realm of pure light

casting her long shadows 

across the frosted glass ground

scribbled by bare black branches.

Above the diamond lit stars, 

below the glittering snows, 

reminders both that even 

the darkest of winter days 

gives way at last to dawn.

Now the night of greening comes 

as in defiance of the cold and dark 

the forest is foraged for the gift of life 

hidden in its grey sleeping hills. 

Comes forth the ivy, 

in her tenacity and strength!

Comes forth the holly,

bright berried and blood blessed!

Comes forth the red Rowan,

long mountain born!

Comes forth the Fir Tree, 

in her verdant mantle!

Now nature once again 

hallows the halls 

of consecrated stone, 

illuminating the cloisters 

and the advent purpled apse 

as scribes once warmed 

the word with colour.

Leaf and branch and winter fruit 

gathered and laid as offerings

bringing life and warmth 

into the place of peace, 

clothing the Advent wreath 

and its singing people 

in circling sanctuary! 

Lighting our longing 

we lay them for 

our Saviour evergreen 

who brought forth 

the new Spring

in the libation of his bright blood 

upon the old earth, 

in the divine seed planted 

upon the rocky skull,

there overcoming the old

sin-wintered death’s stroke at our roots, 

He grafts us to Himself anew

our Advent Adam, binding the knot 

in swaddling, and breathing 

new blessing over the earth,

as with His holy birth 

a breeze from summerlands 

hits hard and drives back 

the cold and dark!

He the true source of our verdant life,

a root renewed, 

a shoot green and bursting,

born from a thornless Rose 

that blooms this Winter night,

blessed beneath the whitest snow,

as now the greening comes again.

Traditionally the evening of December the 16th was the day of the Greening of the Church when people brought branches and fruits from the  forests to decorate the Churches, monasteries and holy wells to prepare for the Christmas Feast...

Wintry: a meditation poem of Winter Light

Wintry: A Meditation Poem of Winter Light

A dreary day you say?

Wintry yes, but dreary?

There I choose to differ.

Remember.

What have you seen along the way?

The winter cherries are beginning to bloom

in the gardens along the road.

Small flurries of blossom erupt from frosted buds launching clouds of colour skywards

Pink, white and delicate as castor sugar dusting they soften sight like in looked for blessings.

Yes, the red gold and purple leaves have all fallen, but

now their breeze shifting shapes makes a kaleidoscope of the forest floor,  

while over head the bare branches describe their complicated winter geometry to the wind, each twig an ink stick scribbling on the sky.

Along the street the lamps are early lit

in windows and paint the pavement yellow, gold and orange,

shining boxes of warmth and light, out and upward into early darkness;

behind each a mind, a soul, a heart on fire with all the subtle colours of emotions’ ever shifting palette painting stories of day’s doings in their words.

Christmas trees and silvered lights make of the land a mirror to our constellated sky,

each a drop of glimmer grace, each a bell calling us to home and hearth and beyond again at last to Bethlehem.

Look up my friend.

Look around, about and then within,

You daily live a rainbowed life, 

so praise this winter dark, a blessed yearly chance to see again the light, the colours that shine beneath, behind all things

from which the light arises 

out of which the colour comes.

A reflection for the feast of St. John of the Cross

 

One of my favourite Advent reflections is this beautiful poem based on the writings of St. John of the Cross. It reminds us that in each moment we are all Midwives of the Presence. Let us invite Mary to dwell in the Cave of our hearts that the Christ may be born in us always +

Advent

If

you want

the Virgin will come walking down the road

pregnant with the holy,

and say,

“I need shelter for the night, please take me inside your heart,

my time is so close.”

Then, under the roof of your soul, you will witness the sublime

intimacy, the divine, the Christ

taking birth

forever,

as she grasps your hand for help, for each of us

is the midwife of God, each of us.

Yet there, under the dome of your being does creation

come into existence eternally, through your womb, dear pilgrim—

the sacred womb in your soul,

as God grasps our arms for help; for each of us is

His beloved servant

never far.

If you want, the Virgin will come walking

down the street pregnant

with Light and sing ... 

.

--St. John of the Cross, “If You Want” in Daniel Ladinsky Love Poems from God: Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West (New York: Penguin Group, 2002), 306-307.

.

Third Sunday of Advent : Gaudete Sunday

 The Third Sunday of Advent; "Gaudete Sunday", Rejoicing Sunday!

Joy bubbles up in the realm of created things as it feels its Creator draw near.

We are Joyful because the One we long for is about to enter the world.

Joyful because we know that nothing can happen in our life that can take this joy from us.

Joyful even in the midst of the darkness of our own lives for the One who IS Joy is descending and will take away our sorrow and our pain!

Joy bubbles up in the realm of created things as it feels its Creator draw near...

Remember, every Christmas light you see was kindled, ultimately, known or not, to greet the One who IS Joy!

May the light of your heart be alight today with Joy!

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

The wondrously miraculous Tilma (cloak) of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the great sacred treasures of our faith... An extraordinary miracle that keeps revealing new mysteries as science continues to look ever more deeply at it down through the ages... But whatever mysteries it contains the most important grace it brings us to be a physical reminder of the nearness of our immaculate Mother  and her message of love to all people, especially those in trouble and persecuted... May Our Lady of Guadalupe be as close to me and to you as a cloak wrapped around us always, especially on this her feast day!

Memorare to Our Lady of Guadalupe

Remember, O most gracious Virgin of Guadalupe, that in your heavenly apparitions on the mount of Tepeyac, you promised to show your compassion and pity towards all who, loving and trusting you, seek your help and call upon you in their necessities and afflictions. You promised to hear our supplications, to dry our tears, and to give us consolation and relief.

Never has it been known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided. Inspired by this confidence, we fly to you, O Mary, ever-Virgin Mother of the true God! Though grieving under the weight of our sins, we come to prostrate ourselves before you. We fully trust that, standing beneath your shadow and protection, nothing will trouble or afflict us, nor do we need to fear illness or misfortune, or any other sorrow.

O Virgin of Guadalupe, you want to remain with us through your admirable Image, you who are our Mother, our health, and our life. Placing ourselves beneath your maternal gaze, and having recourse to you in all our necessities, we need do nothing more.

O Holy Mother of God, despise not our petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer us. Amen