Well, looky here—it’s Advent again, right on schedule. That period before Christmas where Christians are meant to snuggle into the season and prepare for the birth of Christ. It’s a long one this year: four Sundays and six days to get our act together, to gather our thoughts, count our blessings, assess how we’ve done during the previous months and what we might do better in the coming year.
Oh, and maybe let
in a little joy. And hope.
You can do this
whether you’re religious or not, whether you’re Christian or not.
IMHO, it’s a good thing
indeed to press pause—especially at year’s end and when the nights are long and
cold in the Northern Hemisphere—and reflect. Reflect on whatever it is you’ve
got that needs reflecting.
And I believe that
this year in particular, it’s appropriate to consider people around the world
who may find it hard to see either joy or hope, but particularly those in
Ukraine, where they’ve been under attack for going on 10 months now by Putin’s
aggressive and illegal invasion.
First Sunday in Advent is in fact about hope. The prophesy of
Isaiah looms large, and we open our hearts to the hope of the redeemer’s birth—in
whatever form that might take. So we’ll start out with “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel”,
which is as clear an invitation as you’re going to get.
Floriani is a quartet of men whose common ground seems to be
having attended Thomas Aquinas College, a small liberal arts school in Santa Paula, Calif., that
teaches using the Great Books method. The group is focused on sacred music.
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