Readings week of December 22nd.
- Linda Lueng
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Updated: 9 hours ago
Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*
Monday, December 22nd
Reading: “Light comes pretty inexpensively and maybe even too conveniently to us. With batteries in flashlights and the cool-to-the-touch fluorescent glow of chemical lights, Christ might well say to us anew: “You are the fire of the world.” Fire is heat and combustion—fuel actively being consumed and transformed into energy. “Fire!” is a cry for attention, and a warning for anyone who is unprepared. That must be what Our Lord had in mind when he said, “You are the light of the world.” We have grown accustomed to Advent being a season of light, but let’s agree to make this Advent a season of fire. Be consumed by the energy that dwells and is growing within. Let it burn in you. Let God use fire to purify the cosmos through you and make ready the Way of the Lord.
—Thomas Hoffman, A Child in Winter: Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany with Caryll Houselander, p. 61
Tuesday, December 23rd
Reading: “Light comes pretty inexpensively and maybe even too conveniently to us. With batteries in flashlights and the cool-to-the-touch fluorescent glow of chemical lights, Christ might well say to us anew: “You are the fire of the world.” Fire is heat and combustion—fuel actively being consumed and transformed into energy. “Fire!” is a cry for attention, and a warning for anyone who is unprepared. That must be what Our Lord had in mind when he said, “You are the light of the world.” We have grown accustomed to Advent being a season of light, but let’s agree to make this Advent a season of fire. Be consumed by the energy that dwells and is growing within. Let it burn in you. Let God use fire to purify the cosmos through you and make ready the Way of the Lord.
—Thomas Hoffman, A Child in Winter: Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany with Caryll Houselander, p. 61
Chant: Inner Life of Being, bearing Christ within me, come – John Tavener, lyrics by Alan Krema and Darlene Franz
Wednesday, December 24th
Reading: “So, very often, poets will say things a lot better than theologians, perhaps you've noticed and one of my favorite of all explorations of the meaning of not only the how and the what, but the why of the annunciation comes in a poem called “Annunciation” by the modern poet Denise Levertov and in this she tries to paint a picture of the psyche, of the state of being of this person that we often just put up on a pedestal and sort of identify as the mother of surrender and Denise is trying to get at the fact that surrender, the kind of surrender that co-creates the world of redeemed love, the world of redemption, is not an act of passive knuckling under, but an active participational intelligence. She writes in this one poem and she says, "Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings the angelic ambassador standing or hovering, whom she acknowledges, a guest. We are told of meek obedience. No one mentions courage." There's an insight. “Courage,” the word comes from French “corage,” and to see Mary as modeling the way of the heart.”
“Denise continues, "The engendering Spirit did not enter her without consent. God waited." And we often think of Advent as the time where we're doing the waiting. This is a wonderful flip in this poem that says in a deep way God waited. God waited, the whole wheels of creation awaited a ‘yes’ from a human being, that is formed not with gritted teeth and humble knuckled under obedience, but an active intelligence. And then Denise Levertov goes on to explore what this intelligence was and some of her words, "Compassion and intelligence fused in her, indivisible." So, the contemplative act, the act of courage, the act of compassion and intelligence that allows a yes to be yes is indeed an act of seeing which is at the same time an act of participation, a yes which is not passive but active.”
– Cynthia Bourgeault, CAC’s An Advent Meditation with Cynthia Bourgeault Unedited Transcript
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