My article on “Christmas in the Desert” appears in the November-December issue of Living City, the magazine of the Focolare Movement in North America. I describe a quiet and radically Marian Advent, “waiting for the baby to be born,” even “hiding” images of the infant Jesus until Christmas Eve.
Since our “crazy commercialized culture” is partied out by December 26, I then encourage a counter-cultural celebration of the full 12 Days of Christmas. As Melanie McDonagh lamented years ago in her article “Don’t Stop the Party,”
“Advent has been abolished and Christmas has been hideously elongated before it happens, yet truncated when it should be happening. The whole period of waiting for Christmas has been overtaken by the celebration of it.”
If you’re as concerned about the state of the world as I am, you may want to consider what my article says about the unsentimental connection between Christ’s cradle and the cross and Frank Horne’s Epiphany poem about the Magi which he wrote during the insanity of World War II:
“… as the bombs crash all over the world today, the real wise guys know that we’ve all got to go chasing stars again… [hoping that] we can get back some of that Kid Stuff born two thousand years ago.”
You’ll find more on these themes on this site and in Season of Glad Songs: A Christmas Anthology.
for me, advent is always a time of waiting and stillness, a very special season of marian spirituality. this is a carol that i love to sing during advent which i first heard sung by some little sisters of jesus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgKyG2JXLPg as we go about our advent journey, we carry the christ child within us wherever we may go, just like mary.
Love the Celtic sound of this!