Advent & Christmas set in time. A Benedictine oblate blog

Night Sky

[Click picture to enlarge]

What is the setting of Advent and Christmas in a monastery? Virtually every element in the way loving and joyous Christians celebrate Advent and Christmas in the wider community can be found in a monastery — the music, decorations, gifts, guests, and special food, for example. But the setting and context of the Advent and Christmas seasons are different when I visit a monastery. So, I am not talking about the individual elements of these two seasons, but their backdrop — the background scene on which those elements are projected and revealed.

Advent and Christmas in a monastery feel like they are set in time. These first parts of the new liturgical year move across a background of time. Like stars at night, Advent and Christmas stand out vividly — moving with sense of fixed, ancient precision.

Few things draw the human spirit into the search for what’s beyond ourselves like watching the night sky. A visit to a monastery during Advent and the Christmas season is a way of looking up.

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying:
Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will.” Luke 2:13-14

Merry Christmas.

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Footnotes:

Picture is The big Sky by the Ocean by spatulated and is used subject to license.