Month: November 2019

Advent Books

{a limited, but worthy list}

Advent of the Heart: Season Sermons and Prison Writings 1941-1944  ~ Alfred Delp

Our hearts must be keenly alert for opportunities in our own little corners of daily life. May we stand in this world, not as people in hiding, but as those who help prepare the way of the only-begotten Son of God.

On February 2, 1945, three men were hanged within Tegel Prison in Munich on grounds of treason. Fr. Alfred Delp was one of them. He had been convicted and tried for preaching against the Nazi regime. During his time in prison, he wrote reflections and sermons on little bits of paper, which were providentially smuggled out. Those reflections were gathered along with his previous sermons during Advent and published in a collection entitled Advent of the Heart.

The first time I read this book, it opened my eyes to the meaning and purpose of Advent. I’ve come back to it every year, and every year I find something new to meditate upon.

Fr. Delp’s fortitude and courage is communicated through his preaching. He writes about being shaken awake in Advent, about spending one’s life as a candle does for light. He writes about figures in Advent, like St. John the Baptist and the Blessed Mother. Knowing the situation he was in— of close monitoring by the Gestapo as a priest, followed by imprisonment, torture, and death— at the time he wrote these insights, adds more gravitas to his words, “All of life is Advent.”

The passion of the infant christ ~ caryll houselander

The best way I can think to introduce this book to you would be to quote from Houselander directly:

This book is mainly concerned with Christ’s infancy and childhood, and His infancy and childhood in us, not because this is the only way in which He can be in us, for that it certainly is not, but because, however else Christ is manifest in our souls, His life in them must start by being simply the infant life, the small, miraculously helpless life trusted to them to foster, that it may grow.

In Houselander’s unique style, she relates theological truths to life experiences, patterns in nature, and broad social issues. This book reminds me in its style of Way of the Cross in how she reveals the face of Christ in different people of different circumstances in life. It draws the reader out of themselves and asks them to re-examine their life in relation to others, but mainly in the way that “others” should all be the Christ-child to us.

Remember Jesus Christ ~ Raniero Cantalamessa

Disclaimer: I haven’t read this book YET, but my husband has and, though you don’t know him, I do and I tell you he’s a good resource for books. It’s split into two halves: the first for Advent, the second for Lent.

In order to bring people to Christ today, the Church needs to proclaim as simply and succinctly as the Apostles did, that “Jesus Christ is Lord!”

Jesus of Nazareth: The infancy narratives ~ pope benedict XVI

What I enjoy about this book are all the particulars– the scholarly details that lead to contemplation. Pope Benedict writes extensively on the genealogy of Jesus and what it means, the social and historical context of Roman-occupied Judea, while jumping to and from each Gospel account. I personally love when he compares in detail the annunciation of John the Baptist’s conception to Zechariah, and the annunciation of Christ to Mary.

Also, consider for Advent reading the sections pertaining to the Annunciation and Christ’s birth in Romano Guardini’s The Lord, Fulton Sheen’s Life of Christ, and Adrienne von Speyr’s Handmaid of the Lord.

the advent of Advent

Advent is a heart that is awake and ready.

Fr. Alfred Delp

Advent is a season of preparation, but in these last few days preceding Advent, I am in a period of preparing for the preparation by uncovering boxes in the garage that house the Advent wreath, candles, Jesse Tree and ornaments, books, etc. It’s much like that excitement I felt as a child in preparing for Christmas Eve after winter break had begun and Christmas seemed palpably near. The whole season is different for me now as an adult, and as a Catholic, but that stirring of the heart in anticipation of something mysterious and beautiful is familiar and comforting. Advent is my favorite season, even more so than Christmas.

I remember somewhere in adolescence when the magic of Christmas had waned. It was depressing. I tried to drum up the feelings of Christmas, whatever that means, the kind of sentimental nonsense I absorbed from department stores and Christmas movies, or something. But after entrenching myself in the liturgical year as a Catholic, the magical quality of Christmas was restored, but not just as a sense of wonder, but as reverence, a holy awe at the prophecies of Christ’s coming and the mystery of the Incarnation. Suddenly, life comes to a point; the purpose of everything is narrowed down to an incomprehensible moment when God becomes man. Yet, it’s not just about a sweet little God-man baby, but about the final coming of Christ. We see that our whole existence is one great Advent, a brief preparation for uniting with God.

Over the years, we’ve developed family traditions during Advent. We’ve added on, stolen ideas from other families, altered them, and every year is a little bit different. But our kids have come to depend on these little feasts and practices to make the waiting bearable:

  • the Advent wreath- candle lighting, reading, and/or hymns
  • the Jesse tree, its ornaments and stories
  • the Créche
  • feast of St. Nicholas
  • feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
  • feast of St. Lucia
  • feast of St. John of the Cross
  • feast of St. Hildegard of Bingen
  • books!!! so. many. books… for Children and Adults
    {There are a great many worthwhile books to read during Advent, several of which are on my List of Books I Will Read Someday In A House By The Sea When My Kids Are Grown, but follow the links to my personal favorites}

My aim in describing what we do as a family is to demonstrate that it doesn’t need to be perfect. It really can be thrown together. I’ve been surprised that scrambling for a little celebration one year is expected the following year as an established tradition. These little traditions provide a drumbeat on the march toward Bethlehem.

what to do (and not do) upon encountering a proverbial singing, tap-dancing, ukulele-playing Ann Miller

I had a dream the other night that I was at an audition. Right before my turn, I had to watch a girl audition before me. And she was amazing. I mean, this girl was tap-dancing, singing, AND playing the ukulele (and she bore a strong resemblance to Ann Miller). In my dream, I wanted to back out of the audition, but an even more pervasive feeling was smallness. I felt like I was growing more invisible and inconsequential by the second.

I’ve had stress-theater dreams before where someone tells me I’m in a show and I have to go on stage, but I have none of the lines memorized. Or stress-teacher dreams when I show up at school without a shirt on, or stress-college dreams when I find out I still need five credits to graduate. Or even stress-marriage dreams when I realize we’re still not married even though we have six kids together. But this wasn’t like that. I kind of laughed to myself about it all morning—I mean, that’s pretty funny, a tap-dancing, singing, ukulele-playing Ann Miller—but then I realized: I know where that came from…

I recently felt intimidated by another woman, and it took me by surprise. It’s been a long time since I felt small and inconsequential in someone’s presence. Humbled, sure. Inspired, yes. But suddenly self-conscious and uncomfortable about being me? It’s been awhile. While talking to her, I found myself wondering, “I bet she has a ‘beauty regimen’, whatever that is. I’ve never had a ‘beauty regimen’. Should I start having a ‘beauty regimen’? Buy creams or something?” I had a flash-memory of something I had passed in the store, some kind of skin-boosting de-wrinkling face mask that maybe I should have bought after all.

Then, by an act of the Holy Spirit I’m sure, I realized I was objectifying this person. I was assessing this girl like a virus scanner, looking for ways she was all noise and no substance, only because I felt small in her presence. This is the embryonic state of The Mean Girl. From here, it can only get so much worse. I snapped out of it, hoping I hadn’t caused palpable tension in the room with my laser-beam nasty-probe. Ideally, I wouldn’t have had to enter into the equation at all, except to offer my hand and heart to someone new.

As women, why do we do this? Why do we compare ourselves?

Ironically, I’ve been advising my daughters through similar things. Growing up in public school really was like the scene in Mean Girls when the students are acting like animals in the wild, either on the prowl, on the defensive, or tearing someone to pieces. That was definitely the subtext of my childhood education. When girls meet someone they are intimidated by, they either avoid them, grovel, or become their best friend just to keep them close. I thought by homeschooling my children, they wouldn’t encounter that kind of behavior. While they’re not immersed in it, I’m actually really thankful they get glimpses of it in social situations. It’s interesting to see how they react, how it stabs them to the quick, but how easy it is to fall prey to petty behavior. I’ve seen them leave a social situation and, as though having been in a girl-world-trance, break out of it with shock and confusion about how they acted, or at having been injured by another girl’s behavior.  Why and how did that happen? their bewildered faces say. Because you’re a lady-human, I reply. And we have to consciously choose charity every moment of our lives.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross famously wrote, “The world doesn’t need what women have, it needs what women are.” We nurture and cultivate life, we care for and draw out the individual, we seek out the heart and connect it to all aspects of living. This is certainly true in the reverse: the malice we are capable of on a personal, intimate level can be destructive. It’s the kind of harm that breaks down a person piece by piece from the inside, chipping away little by little. But when we, as women, use our personal insight to encourage and build up a person, the result is truly remarkable. Instead of reading another woman like a Pinterest-board and seeing all the things we aren’t or don’t have, we can thank God that amazing person exists in the world. (Because, honestly, the world would undoubtedly be a better place with more tap-dancing, singing, ukulele-playing Ann Millers.)

the Saints

At a garage sale sometime around the age of 16, I bought a little green book called Wisdom of the Saints. I can’t say why I bought it at the time, because at the same garage sale I bought a print of a painting of Venice that wasn’t particularly good, and the book Coffee, Tea, or Me. But Catholicism had recently entered into my consciousness. I had a Catholic boyfriend who was in the process of re-discovering his Faith; I had just toured the Iberian Peninsula with my grandparents and fresh memories of cathedrals and Fátima were percolating quietly in the recesses of my heart. So for some pocket change, I bought this little book. It was like a saint appetizer plate, including brief bios and writing samples of some of the greats. I read a little here and there—my James Dean bookmark still holds my place.

At the time, the whole “saints” thing was one of those medieval Catholic inventions I had heard people talk about, things I knew we were supposed to snuff at as post-Reformation, American Christian people. We were smarter now, and knew it was all poppycock. Once you’re dead, you’re dead. Though, I did believe in an after-life, that souls went to either Heaven or Hell, which meant our souls kept on living in some kind of way. But Heaven was like a distant place, the “better place” which God lit up with his light and love. I think I pictured it like a drug-less Woodstock where everyone was blissfully happy and hugging each other. People I loved who had died had gone there and we would see them someday, but were for now off the radar, sealed away.

For me growing up, the only guarantee in the invisible, spiritual world was God and the angels, as well as the devil and demons. It made logical sense to me that if I really believed in the eternal-ness of our souls, just as I asked people to pray for me in the here and now, then I could ask the living souls to pray for me— those who had died, but whom death had not conquered through Christ’s salvific work on the Cross. Intellectually, I understood this. But the actual practice of it would take some time (and a little gumption). I could pick up a book like Wisdom of the Saints and appreciate the wisdom. But anything beyond that bordered the crazy.

The funny thing is, it seemed like certain saints started choosing me. I heard this from other people through the years, how it is true for them. Now that I’ve had children, I absolutely believe this to be true. For me, St. Faustina Kowalska and St. Thérèse of Lisieux were the two spiritual power-houses who caught my attention at first. I write more about that [here] and [here].

The communion of the saints changed the way I understood Heaven, and in so doing, how I related to the eternal on a daily basis. Heaven became a part of my life in the present, something not just to long for but also to experience here on earth. The communion of the saints is tied into the Mass: with the angels and saints we proclaim, “Holy, holy, holy!” While they kneel at the throne of God, we kneel to our humble Lord and Savior come to us in the form of bread.

When I started having children, I was at a loss as to how to teach them a number of Catholic things, but the Saints was something I was really eager to share with them. I’m so thankful they posses an awareness of this greater Christian family. Though we haven’t always been consistent, we try to celebrate all of their feast days (or name days). As they get older and are confirmed, they can choose their own feast. My eldest took Francis of Assisi as her special patron at her Confirmation, so now she considers October 4 her feast day. My second-eldest has a few namesakes, but has chosen St. Faustina’s feast most recently. Celebrating their feast day can be as simple as an acknowledgement, or they might get the day off from school (we home-school), sometimes we’ll have a special treat or something like that.

Through the years, at times during night prayer, each of the kids could pick a saint from whom to ask for prayers as part of a family-wide litany. As each of them gets older, I’m surprised sometimes by the saints they call on. Sometimes I know why that particular saint is on their mind, whether they just read about them in school, or they had a recent feast day, but there are times when it’s out of the blue to me, which is a lovely reminder that they’re on their own journey of faith. Last year I wrote up a family Litany of Saints to pray on All Saint’s day, November 1. It was alarmingly long, and really powerful to pray together.

As more people close to me have died, Heaven begins to feel nearer. Through childbirth, Heaven feels nearer. And the reality is, the veil that separates us from the eternal is thin. I could go through life without knowing about the saints, but I don’t know why I would. There is strength in numbers. And I need encouragement and guidance from my brothers and sisters here with me in this life, as well as those who have joyfully finished the race.