Advent

Greetings after many weeks of silence. In fact, Advent greetings. I have been meditating a little on the significance of Advent candles. This is probably the only bit of liturgy that is reminding me of my past 70+ years nearly 80 in fact. I looked up in various places the words associated with each of the Advent candles, and I discovered that I have differing thoughts about them, and I use different colors. We traditionally have four equal white candles for the four Sundays in Advent and one red candle for Christmas.

As I thought about them, I considered that Advent itself is a time of expectation. And I agreed with the general consensus, that hope is the name of the first candle. Then I thought surely light is the second candle. Light does not appear in anyone’s list that I could find. Yet light and darkness are clearly an issue related to hope, so I consider my second candle to be light. 

What about the third and the fourth? There are so many possible keywords that it’s hard to choose just two more. Love, joy, faith, peace? And was I right to anticipate light when the entire season of Epiphany might teach more about light? Or should the Christ candle be considered the one that brings light into the world? I think I will stick with the traditional third Sunday interpretation which considers the candle to be for joy. We can’t explain joy, even if we give it the Latin name Gaudete. Siri doesn’t do Latin.

Then I will keep the word peace for the day fourth Sunday. Peace is severely lacking these days. One truly wonders what madness has overcome the human race. 

Peace is the single word of our joined hands at meal time before we begin to eat. There can be very complicated and very simple graces before or during or after a meal, but the single word, peace, is a start. Let the four white candles also stand for innocence. Hope may be lodged in a child’s presence. 

Light, joy, peace, all these words are short, but very large. In this period of expectant hope the light shows us our darkness, joy shows us our inability to trust each other, and peace shows us the immensity of our wars. 

Now, consider this: God has given us himself, his presence, and love to keep us from the ravages of ourselves. Pardon my pronouns. My language is insufficient. But so is yours. God’s self today is cold, bitter, filled with the consequences of our actions. God’s presence and love to keep us must first correct us so that we can all learn to keep ourselves. It is obviously mysterious. That is why my Christ candle is red. Red is for self-giving.

I think I had better stop this dictation. I am still sort of on holiday in the midst of the current storms. I have to return to design and build my new dwelling place. I don’t know if I will succeed but I think the experience will be important for us. Wish us luck in the new year.