Silent Night

 

For me, music is the center of Christmas.  Music brings me to presence, it gets inside of me - or comes from inside of me, I don’t know which.  Or both.  In music, inside and outside meet.  

Just as music is the center of Christmas, Silent Night is the center of the music.  Silent Night marks the pivot point between Advent and Christmas, the time of quiet and stillness in which Christ steals into the physical plane.  

The service begins with full lighting.  The church is full of wreaths and boughs of pine and red ribbons, and maybe candles at each pew.  Sometimes there is incense, just enough to get the scent without causing too much sneezing. 

We open with a vigorous hymn:  “O Come All Ye Faithful,” usually.  Then comes “Angels We Have Heard on High,”  and the readings and the sermon.  There is another hymn before the Gospel, and an anthem before the communion.   As we move into the Great Thanksgiving and turn toward communion we keep singing, ancient words of praise.  Then, with a little quiet organ music, we go forward to receive the Body and Blood of this newly born Christ.  It’s all magical, capturing even the people who don’t really believe the official version; they can feel and hear that something special is happening.

But for me, the peak of the service comes after communion.  We each return to our pew and kneel in silence. The lights are turned down, or off.   In the quiet and dark, candles are lit.  We each received a small candle on entering the church, and now the flame is passed from person to person.  We hold our candles, and we sing “Silent Night.”  It is slow and gentle, moving up and down the scale, floating up and pausing.  It’s like holding your breath, only you’re singing.

“Love’s own true light.” “Radiant beams from thy holy face.”  “Sleep in heavenly peace.”  Light and sound come together.  I can see the light, as gentle as the sound.  I can feel the presence of God, within me and around me.  I could kneel here forever, but now it’s time to go.

  After Silent Night has been sung, the closing prayer signals a return to normal time.  Our breath is moving again now, as we prepare for “Joy to the World” and its busier descant.  There’s a place for all of these moods, all of these songs.  Send me out with joy and alleluias; but first gather me in with silence and peace.  I’ve had my moment, and I carry it in my heart until I can get home and be quiet again.

Sometimes I’ve been in places where they don’t sing Silent Night after communion.  It’s never felt right to me.  Silent Night is for this moment, this quiet and peace before we stand and prepare to leave.  Time stands still here.

When we don’t sing Silent Night after communion, I go home in peace anyway.  I stand out under the stars, and I sing it softly to myself, to the universe.  That’s the real moment of Christmas, where the stars and the song join together.  Heaven opens, and angels pour down.

Anniversaries

 I know I haven't been writing here very often, but I really need to today.  December 12 is a major feast for me.  It is the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, She who watches over the peoples of the Americas.  This would be lovely in itself, but it's not the reason it's huge for me.  December 12 is the date of two major anniversaries in my life, the twins pillars of my vocation.

On December 12, 2020, I became a postulant at the Community of St. John Baptist in New Jersey.  This is the beginning of the monastic journey, as the entrant learns about the life and discerns whether this path might be right.  For me it was a moment of being embraced.  I came into the little chapel and stood before the Superior, and she led me through a short declaration of my intent and the community's reception.  The novice director led me to my new stall in choir, where I found my prayer book and a little card, handmade.  Beside an icon of Mary were the words in gold: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord."  On the back were my name, the date, and my postulancy.  I still have that card on my desk.  I see it every day and give thanks.

On December 12, 2009, I was ordained to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church.  At that point I was living apart from the community, and a year later I was "dispensed" from my vows.  The Church could say that, but I knew that my vows were for life, to God; I just didn't know how and where I would live them out.  Eventually God sent me to Elizabeth and we built a new container.  But on that day in 2009, the Sisters were there along with my several church communities.

For years I've said that my monastic vocation is the deepest layer, that my priesthood is secondary to that.  But this year that has changed.  I'm sensing now that the whole journey is one thing, one big God arc.  When I entered the convent people said I should be a priest.  I said no, for many years.  And that was right: I had a lot to learn before I could even begin that process.  I still do.  But priesthood is not secondary.  It's just as much a part of me as my vows and my hunger for God.  It's all one.  

So I wonder: are there threads in your life that look disparate, even opposed, that might instead be one tapestry that God is weaving under your very nose?  Where does tension point to new integration beckoning?

I am eternally grateful to the CSJB Sisters, and to Phillip Wilson and the Church of the Redeemer, and to David Desmith and St. David's Church, to confessors and directors and mentors and everyone who walked with me on that journey.  And I give thanks for all those who continue with me now, and show me more when I think I'm done.  And I give thanks for Guadalupe, watching and guiding me.

May God bless you and keep you; may God make her face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; may God lift up her countenance to you, and give you peace.