PRAYER: Fourth Sunday Of Advent by Mitch Finley

Posted on December 23, 2018

From Season of Promises

In winter silence is visible: the snow is silence become visible.

The space between Heaven and Earth is occupied by silence; Heaven and Earth are merely the edge of the snowy silence.

Snowflakes meet in the air and fall together on to the Earth, which is already white in the silence. Silence meeting silence.

People stand silent on the side of the street. Human language is covered by the snow of silence. What remains of man is his body standing in the snow like a milestone of silence. People stand still and silence moves between them.
(Max Picard, The World of Silence)

Do you live in a snowy land? Or do you remember living in a snowy land at an earlier time in your life, waking up to find the world under snow? The first snowfall of the winter. Remember. Look out a window at the first snowfall of the year and capture the silence in your heart. Everything is quiet; the snow muffles sound. In the snow, under the fall of snow, the world becomes an Advent place, waiting quietly, waiting for whatever destiny the snow may bring. Waiting quietly.

Sing a song of Advent, pocket full of sky. Four and twenty snow birds all begin to fly. There are no words, there is no poetry wide enough to hold the mystery that is Advent. As we step into the last week of Advent we realize, with chagrin, that Advent is always beginning. Even as Advent starts the slow, quiet walk toward its own end we know that it never ends. Even on Christmas, we know that life itself is one long Advent, waiting, looking forward, moving toward the beginning that is the end of life. Life is one long Advent moving toward the Christmas that is our ultimate destiny. Each Advent reminds us of this. Each Advent reminds us.