Advent Music, Reflections, Wishes
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    After trying and stressful recent weeks and months, the Advent of our Lord has arrived. May it help us all to turn our thoughts inward, humbly, to contemplate and set our thoughts on the approaching Nativity. The world and all its people need our prayers and good will...

    So please feel free to share your own thoughts, reflections, wishes ... in words and/or music ... of Advent.

    To start the ball rolling: Three stanzas of Christina Rossetti's "Advent" form the text of my "This Advent Moon" ... composed for my wife shortly after the passing of her father.
    'The days are evil looking back,
    The coming days are dim.'

    This Advent moon shines cold and clear,
    These Advent nights are long;
    Our lamps have burned year after year
    And still their flame is strong.
    'Watchman, what of the night?' we cry,
    Heart-sick with hope deferred:
    'No speaking signs are in the sky,'
    Is still the watchman's word.

    The Porter watches at the gate,
    The servants watch within;
    The watch is long betimes and late,
    The prize is slow to win.
    'Watchman, what of the night?' But still
    His answer sounds the same:
    'No daybreak tops the utmost hill,
    Nor pale our lamps of flame.'

    One to another hear them speak
    The patient virgins wise:
    'Surely He is not far to seek' –
    'All night we watch and rise.'

    'Yet count we not His promise slack,
    But watch and wait for Him.'
    Giffen-This Advent moon.pdf
    180K
    08 The Advent Moon-192.mp3
    7M
    Thanked by 5Cantus67 bonniebede Heath eft94530 M. Jackson Osborn
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    My "Creator of the Stars of Night" beautifully arranged for solo soprano and sung by Denice Grant:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WEzm4Lbp_E


    Thanked by 2JulieColl sergeantedward
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Nox praecessit, dies autem appropinquavit. Abjiciamus ergo opera tenebrarum, et induamur arma lucis.

    The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen M. Jackson Osborn
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    And He shall judge the Gentiles and rebuke many people: and they shall turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation: neither shall they be exercised any more to war. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord our God.


    This was in the Lesson for Ember Wednesday in Advent last week, and when I heard it, I was reminded of how Kevin in Kentucky said the Church's liturgy always gives us what we need to hear. Not to be political or partisan, but after listening to the debates last week, I was reminded again and again by the phrase "neither shall they be exercised any more to war". How much the American people are "exercised" to war. How upsetting it is to see some politicians of both parties eagerly foment hostility and aggression in far corners of the world.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    How upsetting it is to see some politicians of both parties eagerly foment hostility and aggression in far corners of the world.


    Agreed that this is something we should not do. However, we seem to lack the ability to follow anything through to resolution these days. We shouldn't start wars, but when attacked, we should have the resolve to finish them.

    Where is Bonnie? We need to go to war with Ireland to settle up for past wrongs. LOL

    On second thought, if they gave us Guinness we would throw in the towel and the war would end without anyone firing a shot.. LOL.
    Thanked by 1JulieColl
  • bonniebede
    Posts: 756
    We need to go to war with Ireland to settle up for past wrongs


    Apparently, we have already taken over your church and remade it in our own image, so it looks like you already lost.

    image

    ALL YOUR BASES ARE BELONG TO US.

    image
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen Olivier eft94530
  • bonniebede
    Posts: 756
    or is that 'All your basses are belong to us?

    http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/lowest-vocal-note-by-a-male
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Regarding wars: the American constitutional system is intentionally designed to frustrate the prosecution of wars over the long term. Our major wars have never lasted for more than two election cycles, and the constitutional structure is biased against it. Modern assymetrical warfare is virtually impossible to sustain politically and constitutionally for more an election cycle or two.
    Thanked by 1CharlesW
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    Apparently, we have already taken over your church and remade it in our own image, so it looks like you already lost.


    Nope, your church. I'm Byzantine. We laugh at your low masses. ;-)

    or is that 'All your basses are belong to us?


    You can have them. They're awful!

    Send the Guinness and I promise no one will get hurt. LOL.
    Thanked by 2bonniebede M. Jackson Osborn
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    [On-topic comments, anyone?--admin]
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    On topic. Advent. It's over. Now I am frantically trying to pull everything together for Midnight Mass. Advent. Let's do it again next year. Everyone wear purple! ;-)
    Thanked by 2chonak Spriggo
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Not yet, CharlesW! I just found some great settings of Veni, Emmanuel. Jeff Ostrowski has a nice article on the 2-part Veni, Emmanuel mentioned above:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fMja12dVdQ

    This arrangement by Philip Lawson might be something to try next Advent:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wE6BzoMt0Ro

    A very lovely 3-part setting by Kodaly:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRi1GDoaQu4

    Score here.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    Next year is so far away - or is it? Maybe it's all relative - in a pastoral sort of way.

  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    I'm re-re-reading St. Athanasius' On the Incarnation of the Word. Athanasius, the hero of Nicaea (along with St. Nicholas), explains very beautifully the Church's long-standing method of determining the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit.

    1. Only God can save.
    2. Jesus saves.
    3. Therefore, Jesus is God.

    This same reasoning is used time and time again throughout the life of the Church, including by St. Basil the Great in his discussions of the Holy Spirit. St. Athanasius is an early practitioner and a wonderful read.

    Athanasius has a lot of sympathy for God as creator: God made us in the divine image, but this image was "disappearing" because of human sin. It was a dilemma: how could God's plan be thwarted? Yet how could God's justice and truth be maintained? The answer: the Word.
    Thanked by 2CharlesW JulieColl
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    We should be at Stonehenge celebrating the winter solstice, instead of worrying about Advent. LOL.

    Thanks for mentioning the St. Athanasius. I haven't read that one. Off to Amazon.
    Thanked by 1Kathy
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