Tag: Visitation

Roundup: Theological spinoff of “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” Advent art with Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt, and four new Christmas song recordings

Victoria Emily JonesLeave a comment

POEM SERIES: “Twelve Days of Advent” by Kate Bluett: This year on her blog, writer Kate Bluett [previously] is publishing a series of original metrical verses based loosely on the cumulative song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” She calls it the Twelve Days of Advent and through it explores the theology of Christ’s coming. I love this creative, sacred spin on the popular seasonal ditty! Here’s where the series currently stands (my favorite poems are in boldface):

  1. “A Partridge in a Pear Tree”: Bluett imagines, in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, a bird singing (representing, as I take it, God’s word), but Adam and Eve heed not his song, and, taking the tree’s forbidden fruit, find themselves exiled. The bird weeps for the alienation of his two friends, and wings his way east of Eden, into the home of a young maiden, a daughter of Eve, who receives him, shelters him, an act that leads to restoration. Bluett uses some of the language of late medieval English folksong, such as “with a low, low, my love, my love” and “welaway.”
  2. “Two Turtledoves”
  3. “Three French Hens”
  4. “Four Calling Birds”: This poem is brilliant. In it the four matriarchs in Jesus’s genealogy speak to Mary, tenderly calling her “Child” and rejoicing in her “bringing forth our life’s tomorrow.” Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba—they’ve long awaited redemption, and now they’re at its threshold. Mary’s yes to God’s call “set[s] [their] dry bones stirring, thrumming / with a hope [they’d] hardly dared.” They inform her that her vocation will involve great suffering (as we know, she’ll experience the brutal death of her son)—but her willingness to give up her son to the cross, to endure that rupture, will mean new life for the world.
  5. “Five Gold Rings”
  6. “Six Geese a-Laying”: Picking up the Isaianic language of the wilderness being made glad, the poetic speaker sings an eschatological vision of flocks coming home to “the orchard of the rood” (rood = cross) to lay and hatch eggs in nests once empty, now brimming with life.
  7. “Seven Swans a-Swimming”

I eagerly await the remaining five poems!

+++

SUBSTACK SERIES: “Art + Advent 2025” by Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt: The art historian Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt [previously], author of Redeeming Vision and the Loving Look Substack, is one of my favorite writers. This Advent she is writing a weekly series of art reflections centered on the themes of hope, peace, joy, and love.

>> “Week 1 // Hope: Abraham’s Oak and Sarah’s Laughter”: Looking at Henry Ossawa Tanner’s painting Abraham’s Oak, Weichbrodt writes about shadowy promise. She also considers, with reference to an early Byzantine mosaic of the Hospitality of Abraham, how to hope again after being wounded, as Sarah did, is a vulnerable thing. “As Advent begins, I find myself peering into a Tanner-like mist, seeing the dim outline of longed-for goodness taking shape in the distance. Sometimes I’m full of hope, but I’m also, like Sarah, sometimes full of armored laughter.”

Tanner, Henry Ossawa_Abraham's Oak
Henry Ossawa Tanner (American, 1859–1937), Abraham’s Oak, 1905. Oil on canvas, 21 3/8 × 28 5/8 in. (54.4 × 72.8 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC.

>> “Week 2 // Peace: A Stitch Pulling Tight”: “How do we do repair work in a fraying world with our own, fraying selves? What thread can stitch together all these gaping wounds?” Weichbrodt asks. She looks at Mary Weatherford’s monumental painting Gloria (new to me!), finding in the hot coral neon light blazing across the canvas resonance with Renaissance paintings of the Annunciation, which portray the Light of the World as the stitch that mends the tear between God and humanity.

Weatherford, Mary_Gloria
Mary Weatherford (American, 1963–), Gloria, 2018. Flashe paint and neon on linen, 117 × 234 in. (297.2 × 594.4 cm). High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

>> “Week 3 // Joy: Far as the Curse Is Found”: In this post, Weichbrodt explores nine Visitation paintings and one extraordinary embroidery. “Every time I see [a Visitation artwork],” Weichbrodt writes, “I encounter joy. It’s not that Mary and Elizabeth are always smiling. Often, their expressions are quite serious. But joy—deep, sustained, sustaining joy—circulates between them like an electrical current.” Justice, threshold, and fecundity are among the supplementary themes touched on.

Visitation embroidery
The Visitation, England, first half of 17th century. Embroidery, 44.1 × 57 cm (framed). Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.

Weichbrodt’s final Advent 2025 post, on love, will be published this Saturday.

+++

SONGS:

Here are four newly released Christmas songs of note: two originals, one lyrical adaptation of a classic, and a new arrangement.

>> “War on Christmas” by Seryn: Seryn’s new album is titled War on Christmas. Here’s the title track:

The refrain is:

There is a war on Christmas
But it’s not the one you think
It’s in the news, it’s out of mind
It happens overseas
Cause as we sing the hymns and songs
With families by our sides
There is a war on Christmas
Someone’s fighting to survive

“War on Christmas” is a phrase some Christian conservatives in the US use to express their feeling of having their faith traditions attacked by the sinister forces of pluralism when people or signage greet them with a generic “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” I roll my eyes big-time when I hear people complain about this, because it’s ridiculous for any American to assert that they are impeded from or ostracized for celebrating Christmas in this country, or to take offense that a stranger does not automatically assume their particular religious affiliation.

Seryn’s song affirms that yes, there is a war on Christmas—only it’s a war not against personal religious freedoms in America but against peace, love, and the other values Christ came to teach and embody. When humans wage literal wars with literal weapons, killing and maiming each other and inducing mass terror—that’s an assault against Christ’s mass, with its message of welcome and reconciliation. So, too, when we perpetuate hate, whether on personal, national, or global scales. As another Christmas song puts it, “Hate is strong and mocks the song of ‘Peace on earth, goodwill to men.’”

>> “O New Commingling! O Strange Conjunction!” by the Anachronists: The lyrics to this new song by the Anachronists [previously]—Corey Janz, Andrés Pérez González, and Jonathan Lipps—are a paraphrase from the sermon “On the Theophany, or Birthday of Christ” by Gregory of Nazianzus (ca. 329–390), one of the most influential and poetic theologians of the early church. Gregory delivered the sermon, labeled “Oration 38” in the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series, at Christmastime in 380 in Constantinople, where he served as bishop. In section 13, the Anachronists’ source for the song, he expresses awe at the beautiful mystery of the Incarnation. Below is an excerpt from the public-domain NPNF translation.

The Word of God Himself—Who is before all worlds, the Invisible, the Incomprehensible, the Bodiless, Beginning of Beginning, the Light of Light, the Source of Life and Immortality, the Image of the Archetypal Beauty, the immovable Seal, the unchangeable Image, the Father’s Definition and Word—came to His own Image, and took on Him flesh for the sake of our flesh, and mingled Himself with an intelligent soul for my soul’s sake, purifying like by like; and in all points except sin was made man. . . . O new commingling; O strange conjunction; the Self-Existent comes into being, the Uncreate is created, That which cannot be contained is contained. . . . He Who gives riches becomes poor, for He assumes the poverty of my flesh, that I may assume the richness of His Godhead. He that is full empties Himself, for He empties Himself of His glory for a short while, that I may have a share in His fullness. What is the riches of His goodness? What is this mystery that is around me? I had a share in the image; I did not keep it; He partakes of my flesh that He may both save the image and make the flesh immortal. He communicates a second Communion far more marvelous than the first.

(Related post: Andy Bast sets to music a Nativity hymn by St. Ephrem)

>> “Away in a Manger (Then to Calvary)” by Sarah Sparks: Singer-songwriter Sarah Sparks [previously] released a new EP, Christmas Hymns, last month, comprising five classic carols, including one with revised lyrics that further draw out the significance of the Incarnation. I’m a big fan of Sparks’s voice and her no-frills acoustic style.

Away in the manger
No crib for a bed
The great King of Heaven
Does lay down his head
The stars he created
Look down where he lay
The little Lord Jesus
Asleep on the hay

And there in the manger
The Maker of earth
In riches and glory?
No, born in the dirt
With oxen and cattle
With shepherds and sheep
No stranger to weakness
He loves even me

And there in the manger
Is our Servant-King
He sits with the lowly
He washes their feet
Away in the manger
Then to Calvary
His birth, life, and death
And his raising for me

And there in the manger
Is my greatest friend
His mercy, his patience
His grace know no end
Be near me, Lord Jesus
For all of my days
In life and in death
Till we meet face to face

>> “Angels We Have Heard on High” by the Petersens: Last Friday the Petersens [previously] released a music video—shot at Wonderland Tree Farm in Pea Ridge, Arkansas—debuting their new bluegrass arrangement of one of my favorite Christmas carols. Banjo, mandolin, fiddle, acoustic guitar, dobro, upright bass—I love the instrumentation of the bluegrass genre and what it adds here, and the Petersens are consummate performers.  

Magnificat roundup: Visio divina with Mary Gardner, “For Ages Women Hoped and Prayed,” and more

Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

QUOTES:

Mary’s response to this announcement [of Jesus’s forthcoming birth]—her Magnificat—is even more overtly revolutionary. Her song in Luke’s Gospel is not a lullaby; it is a manifesto. She declares that the mighty will be cast down from their thrones, the lowly lifted, the hungry filled with good things, and the rich sent away empty. This is the language of redistribution, the language of a world reordered by justice rather than domination. It is no surprise that tyrants have feared this text; throughout modern history, the Magnificat has been prohibited and/or discouraged in public worship in places like Guatemala, Argentina, and India because oppressed communities used it as a rallying cry for liberation. Mary’s theology is insurgent.

—Kat Armas, “The Politics of Birthing God,” Some Things Abuelita (Substack), December 2, 2025

What I love about Hannah and Mary is they step into God’s eternal streams of justice and of righteousness and of what it means to live as a faithful follower of Yahweh. They step into this expansive world of what God is going to do and has promised to do in the world, instead of the smaller space of their own need—which again, is OK and understandable. But they take us to places where, if we’re honest, most of our prayers don’t regularly go.

—Rev. Dr. Tracey Bianchi, “Waiting with Women (Advent Series Part 2): Hannah’s Story and the Gift of Peace (Shalom),” The Alabaster Jar (podcast), December 8, 2025

+++

VIDEO DEVOTION: “Beholding the Magnificat with Mary Gardner”: In this “Space for God” video devotion from Coracle, Rev. Mary Amendolia Gardner, an Anglican priest with a bachelor’s degree in art history and a master’s in Christian spirituality, guides us in lectio divina (sacred reading) with Luke 1:46–55 and visio divina (sacred seeing) with James Tissot’s Magnificat.

Tissot, James_The Magnificat
James Tissot (French, 1836–1902), The Magnificat, 1886–94. Opaque watercolor over graphite on gray wove paper, 9 15/16 × 4 5/8 in. (25.2 × 11.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, New York.

I typically don’t care for Tissot’s biblical watercolors, because of their illustrative quality—they remind me of pictures from the Sunday school curriculum I followed as a child. But I do like this one, which shows Mary in a position of wisdom and authority, absorbed in prayer, preparing to preach and prophesy. Elizabeth and Zechariah stand in attentive awe on the sidelines, their eyes directed toward the divine child she carries in her body while they await her words. The priest’s tongue had been tied, but Mary’s has been loosed. The Cuban American theologian Kat Armas, in the post quoted above, calls Mary “the first theologian of the Gospel,” as she boldly proclaims the messianic deliverance God has set in motion.

+++

SONGS:

>> “For Ages Women Hoped and Prayed” by Jane Parker Huber: “We join the song that Mary sings, an earthly, heavenly theme.” Performed at Wheaton Bible Church in Illinois.

>> “Mary, Did You Know” with alternative lyrics by Jennifer Henry: The original lyrics of this Gaither Vocal Band song were written by Mark Lowry in 1985, and they were set to music by Buddy Greene in 1991; the song became a popular hit. However, some Christians take issue with the rhetorical device that implies Mary did not know her son was God, that he would deliver Israel, and that he would reign forever, when that’s precisely what Gabriel told her from the beginning and what she alludes to in her Magnificat. (Defenders say these questions are most likely voiced by people in Mary’s life who didn’t know all that God had conveyed to her; or that it’s legitimate to wonder whether Mary knew the specifics that would unfold, and to suppose that even if she knew theoretically who Jesus was, she may have struggled to grasp the full scope and significance of his messiahship.)

In 2017, the Canadian theologian and activist Jennifer Henry rewrote the lyrics to center on the Magnificat and its mobilizing influence on justice movements across the globe. That song is sung here by Eric Lige, who is accompanied by Vahagn Stepanyan on piano.

>> “Magnificat” by Simon de Voil, feat. Alexa Sunshine Rose: This adaptation of the Magnificat is by Simon de Voil, a sacred musician, “interspiritual minister,” and retreat leader originally from Scotland now living in Vermont. The imagery in the video is not what I would have expected: It’s footage of bears in the woods. Perhaps it alludes to how all of creation will be redeemed in “the world that is to come”? The bears here, though, seem at peace, so maybe it’s a picture of blessedness, or of creation’s praise alongside Mary’s.

+++

SERMON: “Liberated to See by the God Who Sees” by Wes Vander Lugt, Trinity Forest Church, Concord, North Carolina, December 7, 2025: I’m always pleased when preachers, as part of their biblical exegesis, skillfully integrate art into their sermons—not as mere illustration or decoration but as itself interpreting scripture and/or doing theological work. In the sermon he gave for the Second Sunday of Advent this year, Rev. Dr. Wes Vander Lugt [previously], an ordained Presbyterian minister and director of the Leighton Ford Initiative in Theology, the Arts, and Gospel Witness at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, preached on Luke 1:5–25, 39–45, about how God sees us and liberates us to see him and others. He discusses Rembrandt’s Visitation painting, especially the artist’s use of light and shadow—Mary and Elizabeth step out of the shadows, out of a place of feeling unseen, into the light of God’s grace, says Vander Lugt, where they are known and knowing.

Rembrandt_Visitation
Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (Dutch, 1606–1669), The Visitation, 1640. Oil on cedar panel, 22 1/4 × 18 7/8 in. (56.5 × 47.9 cm). Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan. [object record]

He also touches on, very briefly, James B. Janknegt’s 2008 Visitation, which shows how John the Baptist has been liberated to see Jesus, even as the two are still in utero. See 17:49–20:05.

+++

FROM THE ARCHIVE: The Magnificat is a topic I’ve covered on the blog several times over the past ten years. Here are some examples:

Advent, Day 14: Visitation

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

LOOK: The Visitation by Paulina Krajewska

Krajewska, Paulina_Visitation2
Paulina Krajewska (Polish, 1976–), The Visitation, 2016. Tempera on panel, 35 × 25 cm.
Krajewska, Paulina_Visitation
Paulina Krajewska (Polish, 1976–), The Visitation, 2016. Tempera on panel, 35 × 25 cm.

LISTEN: “Curious Woman” by Tow’rs, on The Holly & the Ivy (2020)

I feel the flames, oh Madonna
I feel the heat of your child
Birthing from all heaven’s glory
Clothed in the brown skin of God
I see a light in the desert
I see it blazing on high
Burning down all preconceived
Notions of who you would be

Refrain:
Call it a sweet, oh, a sweet premonition
We saw no defeat as we labored the weight of the fire
Curious woman, the revolution is your joy

I’ve kept my hopes locked away
I’ve kept my scars in a jar
I thought that love had a limit
Careful not to reach too far
Flipping that table of lies
Breached but I’m breathing just fine
Dear woman, please recognize
Divinity held inside [Refrain]

I feel the flames, oh Madonna
I feel the heat of your child
Birthing from all heaven’s glory
Clothed in the brown skin of God

“Dialogue at Midnight: Elizabeth to John” by Sister Maura Eichner, SSND (poem)

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment
Degas, Edgar_Pregnant Woman
Edgar Degas (French, 1834–1917), Pregnant Woman, modeled ca. 1896–1910, cast 1920. Bronze, 16 3/4 × 5 3/4 × 5 5/8 in. (42.5 × 14.6 × 14.3 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
My son, from the chalk
hills of this old flesh
how you have sailed
beyond the waters of
your father’s doubt.

I feel the small skiff
of your body. Yesterday
you leaped (rapids or
waterfall) when young
Mary walked into my arms.

What we women know.
And how much we keep
within the heart, secret
as the honeycomb that is
your skull growing in me.

My son John, trust this
first solitude. Here in the
ancient cave of my body,
sail inland water
safe from followers,

kings and dancing girls.

This poem appears in After Silence: Selected Poems of Sister Maura Eichner, SSND (Notre Dame of Maryland University, 2011), copyright © the Atlantic-Midwest Province of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. 

In anticipation of the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist on June 24, I offer this tender poem by Sister Maura Eichner in which the elderly Elizabeth speaks to her son, John, while he’s still in utero. She senses his life will end early and wishes to keep him safe forever, away from the burdens and perils of a prophetic vocation, away from Herod’s order of imprisonment, away from the lethal spite of Herodias and her daughter-pawn, Salome, whose dancing trophy of choice is John’s head on a platter.

Elizabeth is faithful to God and God’s will—just yesterday, in the company of her also-pregnant cousin Mary, she praised God for the coming Messiah whom even the fetal John recognized, leaping. But as great an honor as it is that her son has been chosen to herald the Messiah, her maternal instinct is to shield and protect him. In the dark of midnight, while her husband, Zechariah, is asleep, she whispers her fears rolled up in a charge, instructing John to savor the shelter of her womb while he still can, as soon he will enter the world’s wilderness and eventually preach himself to a martyr’s death.

For scripture texts that inform Sister Maura’s “Dialogue at Midnight,” see Luke 1 and Matthew 14:1–12.

Sister Maura Eichner, SSND (1915–2009), was a Catholic nun, poet, and professor of literature and creative writing. Born Catherine Alice Eichner in Brooklyn, New York, she took vows with the School Sisters of Notre Dame in 1933 at age eighteen. In 1943 she was assigned to teach in the English Department at the College of Notre Dame of Maryland (now Notre Dame of Maryland University) in Baltimore, where she continued until 1992, serving also as department chair. She published ten books of poetry during her lifetime, including The Word Is Love (1958) and Hope Is a Blind Bard (1989), and maintained correspondence with such writers as Flannery O’Connor, Richard Wilbur, Katherine Anne Porter, and Eudora Welty. She experimented with a diversity of poetic forms and subject matter and disliked religious poetry that is redolent of “thin piety” and “decoratively sweet nosegays,” she told The New York Times in a 1959 interview.

Advent, Day 15: Among Us

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

LOOK: Visitation by Beth Felker Jones

Jones, Beth Felker_Visitation
Beth Felker Jones (American, 1976–), Visitation, 2024. Digital collage with AI-generated elements.

Dr. Beth Felker Jones is a theologian who teaches at Northern Seminary near Chicago. This past year she has been making digital collages of biblical figures, especially women, with the assistance of AI technology. She shares them on her Substack, Church Blogmatics, and offers them for free with watermark or just $10 for a high-resolution, watermark-free download.

Her Visitation, she says, “imagines Mary’s visit to Elizabeth in Luke 1, flowing with milk and honey,” symbols of abundance and nourishment. (The promised land is often referred to in scripture using this poetic expression; see Exod. 3:8, Num. 14:8, Deut. 31:20, and Ezek. 20:15.) With the coming of a Savior, a great spiritual bounty awaits God’s people.

Luke the Evangelist describes Elizabeth as “filled with the Holy Spirit” (1:41). The Spirit is present in the center of this collage, silhouetted in purple, the color of Advent. His wings touch the women’s foreheads as if to bless or to join them together in celebration.

Luke also says that John the Baptist “leaped for joy” inside Elizabeth upon hearing Mary’s greeting (1:44), already recognizing that the one she bore was the Messiah. Jones shows this exultation of the in utero prophet. He splashes in the waters of his mama’s womb, as he will one day in the river Jordan, baptizing the repentant. Meanwhile, the great I AM, enfleshed as a preborn baby, sleeps inside a fiery ring in Mama Mary, crowned as king.

The words of Mary’s Magnificat form the backdrop of the scene.

LISTEN: “Among Us” by Nick Chambers, on Advent Songs by Incarnation Music (2023)

My soul will magnify
The Lord who looked on my
Lowliness with grace
My soul will magnify
My neighbor’s precious life
I see Christ in their face

Refrain:
God is among us
In human disguise
Born as one of us
To open our eyes

My soul will magnify
The Lord who took on my
Lowliness in flesh
My soul will magnify
My neighbor’s desperate cry
For in Christ they are blessed [Refrain]

Based on the Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55), “Among Us” by singer-songwriter Nick Chambers highlights how God’s becoming flesh helps us see the imago Dei (image of God) in our fellow humans. There’s an old Orthodox hymn that says, “Christ was born to raise the image that fell of old. Christ came to restore the beautiful image of God within humankind,” the image that had become obscured through sin.

With Mary, Elizabeth, and baby John, let us celebrate the Lord who brings salvation, raising up the lowly, restoring the broken, and reminding us of the dignity and belovedness of our embodied selves.

This is one of eighteen Visitation-themed songs on the Art & Theology Advent Playlist.

Gaudete! Ten Songs for Advent Rejoicing

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

(This article is an all-new edition of last year’s “Ten Songs of Joy for Gaudete Sunday.”)

The third Sunday of Advent is traditionally known as Gaudete (Joy) Sunday, a day of celebrating the joyful reality that God is near. Advent is characterized by our waiting and yearning for Christ, which can feel heavy, especially as we look around and within and see so much brokenness. But on this day we are reminded to embrace a spirit of joy as we wait and as we yearn—much like a child waits with eager anticipation to unwrap a gift, or lovers to be reunited after a time of separation.

The following ten songs help us to inhabit the gladsome aspects of the Advent season, paving the way to Christmas.

Geyser
Øystein Sture Aspelund (Norwegian, 1984–), GVariations #08, Pamir Mountains, Tajikistan [HT]

1. “First Song of Isaiah” by Jack Noble White (1976) | Arranged and performed by Advent Birmingham, feat. Annie Lee, on Canticles (2020): Here’s an upbeat rendition, with xylophone and ukelele, of Jack Noble White’s choral setting of Isaiah 12:2–6. “You shall draw water with rejoicing from the springs of salvation. . . . Cry aloud, inhabitants of Zion, ring out your joy!” In the Book of Common Prayer this text appears in the section “Morning Prayer, Rite 2,” where it is labeled Canticle 9, “The First Song of Isaiah: Ecce, Deus.”

2. “Rejoice Greatly, O Daughter of Zion” from Messiah by George Frideric Handel (1741) | Performed by Regula Mühlemann (2019): A setting of Zechariah 9:9–10, this aria from Handel’s most famous oratorio features coloratura in the vocals—that is, elaborate, fast-paced ornamentation, trills, runs, and wide leaps—that accentuates the prophecy’s joyful message of a coming king. It’s sung by the Swiss soprano Regula Mühlemann, accompanied by the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under the direction of Alondra de la Parra. For a Broadway-style arrangement of this piece, see here.

3. “Joy (Elizabeth)” by Poor Bishop Hooper, on Firstborn (2018): This song by Jesse and Leah Roberts voices Elizabeth’s awe upon visiting with her younger relative Mary, who is newly pregnant with the Son of God. Elizabeth radiates such joy in the Messiah that her preborn son, John, catches it too, leaping in her womb.

4. “Joy” by Kirk Franklin and Donald Malloy | Performed by the Georgia Mass Choir, feat. Dorothy Anderson and Kirk Franklin, on I Sing Because I’m Happy (1992): Sweet, beautiful, soul-saving joy! That’s what Jesus gives. The Georgia Mass Choir testifies with vigor, led by the Grammy-winning artist Kirk Franklin. In 1996 this song was adapted for Whitney Houston for the film The Preacher’s Wife, with Christmas-specific lyrics, but I really dig Dorothy Anderson’s solo work in this original recording.

5. “Rejoice” by Victory Boyd, on Glory Hour (2023): This anthem by singer-songwriter Victory Boyd is based on Nehemiah 8:10: “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” Victory often incorporates scripture recitations into her songs, and here she speaks Psalm 27:1–6 as a bridge, which has thematic crossovers with the Nehemiah verse. In this live performance from the February 4, 2024, episode of the Hour of Power television program, she is accompanied by the Hour of Power Orchestra, conducted by Marc Riley.

6. “Joy” by Shakti, on Shakti with John McLaughlin (1976): Shakti is an acoustic fusion band that combines Indian music with elements of jazz; they were active in the 1970s and re-formed in 2020. Recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1976, this instrumental improvisation features John McLaughlin on guitar, L. Shankar on violin, Zakir Hussain on tabla (hand drums), and T. H. “Vikku” Vinayakram on ghatam (clay pot).

7. “There Will Be Joy” by Paul Zach and Kate Bluett (2022): “Sorrow has an ending / Something new is coming / Oh, there will be joy!”

8. “Come That Day” by Ken Wettig, on Behold and Become (2019): Ken Wettig served for eight years as pastor of Early Church, a Mennonite congregation in Harrisonburg, Virginia, before becoming a community minister at Coracle. This song he wrote is one that Early Church sings in its worship services. It celebrates the coming day of the Lord, when death will be no more and Christ will bring about total restoration. On that day, all chaos will be stilled, swords will be beaten into plowshares, the poor will be filled, and loved ones taken too soon will embrace one another once again. The song is an invocation: it beseeches Christ to come, to bring the promised consummation of his kingdom.

Wettig has given me permission to post the lead sheet for “Come That Day,” which he freely offers for noncommercial use. Click the link to download a PDF.

9. “Peace and Joy,” Shaker hymn (1893) | Performed by the Rose Ensemble, feat. Kim Sueoka, on And Glory Shone Around (2014): One of the less recognized roots of bluegrass and old-time music is the Shaker tradition. This hymn, performed here by the Rose Ensemble, hails from the late nineteenth-century Shaker community in Mount Lebanon, Columbia County, New York. It beckons us “Awake!” and hear the angels whispering forth the blessings of Christ. “Happy are they who gather these gifts” of peace and joy ushered in by the Incarnation. The fabulous soprano soloist is Kim Sueoka.

10. “Carol of the Bells” – Music by Mykola Leontovych (1914), based on a traditional Ukrainian folk chant | Words by Peter Wilhousky (1936) | Arranged by Isaac Cates and performed by Ordained on Carol of the Bells (2014): The composer, conductor, and pianist Isaac Cates plays piano accompaniment for his choir, Ordained, in this original arrangement of a Christmas classic. Dramatic and haunting, energizing too, “Carol of the Bells” is one of my favorite choral songs of the season—I never tire of hearing it! I love the build in volume and the interplay of voices in imitation of church bells.

25 Poems for Christmas, vol. 3

Victoria Emily Jones4 Comments

This is the third installment of my annual “25 Poems for Christmas” series. Included too, on the front end, are poems for Advent, the four-week season of preparation, hope, and expectation leading up to Christmas.

[Read volume 1] [Read volume 2]

1. “Advent (III)” by W. H. Auden, from For the Time Being: Voiced by the Chorus, who cry out from “a dreadful wood / Of conscious evil,” this is the third section of part 1 of Auden’s book-length Christmas poem in nine parts, For the Time Being—“the only direct treatment of sacred subjects I shall ever attempt,” he said. He wrote the poem in 1941–42. He had originally conceived it as the libretto of an oratorio that Benjamin Britten would write the music for, but the text turned out to be too complex, and Britten abandoned the project. The final two lines of this section set us up for the seemingly impossible feat of divine incarnation: “Nothing can save us that is possible: / We who must die demand a miracle.”

Source: For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio (Princeton University Press, 2013)

2. “Advent” by R. A. (Robert Alan) Rife: Ten sensory metaphors for Advent, conveying its mood of anticipation.

Source: https://innerwoven.me/ (author’s website)

3. “O Orient Light” by James Ryman: Loosely influenced by the O Antiphons (a set of short chants used in medieval Advent liturgies), this Middle English lyric is by the fifteenth-century Franciscan friar James Ryman of Canterbury; it’s one of 166 sacred poems he published in a 1492 collection. Each stanza consists of one rhyme repeated six times, and the Latin refrain translates to “O Christ, king of the nations, / O life of the living.” The fourth stanza is a standout, connecting the salvation wrought by Christ to the healing properties of plants: “O Jesse root, most sweet and sote, / In rind and root most full of bote, / To us be bote, bound hand and foot, / O vita viventium.”

Source: Cambridge University Library, MS Ee. 1.12; compiled in The Early English Carols, ed. Richard Leighton Greene, 2nd ed., revised and enlarged (The Clarendon Press, 1977). Public Domain.

Helmantel, Henk_New Life II
Henk Helmantel (Dutch, 1945–), Nieuw Leven II (New Life II), 1999 (after the 1972 original that was stolen). Oil on canvas, 27 × 24 cm.

4. “Merger Poem” by Judy Chicago: “Merger Poem” is an aspiration that artist Judy Chicago wrote to accompany her 1979 monumental artwork The Dinner Party, a celebration of the richness of women’s heritage, expressed as place settings around a table, that is housed at the Brooklyn Museum. Her vision in the poem is not theistic, at least not explicitly so, but she uses the language of “Eden,” and her descriptions evoke passages from Isaiah about a future harmony, a merging of heaven and earth, in which justice and equity are achieved at last—not to mention the strong eschatological tones that feasting has in Christianity. Each line begins with “And then,” cumulatively generating a longing in the reader for “then” to arrive.

Source: The Dinner Party, exh. cat. (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1979) | https://judychicago.com/

5. “truth” by Gwendolyn Brooks: “And if sun comes / How shall we greet him?” the speaker asks at the opening of this poem. The sun here represents truth, revelation, illumination, which we may seek with weeping and prayer but which can be dreadful when it actually comes. It’s often more comfortable to stay asleep in the dark than to confront the stark brightness of day. But oh, what we miss when we do! Gwendolyn Brooks uses the pronoun “him” for the sun, and it’s easy to read the poem Christologically: you can read it in the sense of any of Christ’s three comings—as a baby in Bethlehem, in personal, inner ways (he reveals himself, and seeks entrance, to human hearts), or as a king and judge at the end of time. Did you catch the reference to Revelation 3:20?

Source: Annie Allen (Harper & Row, 1949); compiled in Blacks (Third World Press, 1987)

Raj, Solomon_Waiting for My Lord
P. Solomon Raj (Indian, 1921–2019), Waiting for My Lord, batik, published in Living Flame and Springing Fountain (ISPCK, 1993)

6. “Advent” by Mary Jo Salter: In this poem a mother and daughter are building a gingerbread house when a wintry gust tears a shutter on their actual house off its hinges, the shock of the thud causing, inside, a gingerbread wall to split. I think “house,” here, could be a metaphor for a faith structure; a house of belief. Shutters are doing a lot of work in the text: one falls off in a storm, and the daughter’s Advent calendar consists of twenty-five shutters, one opened each day until Christmas to reveal a Bible verse or narrative scene.

I’m not quite sure how to interpret the poem overall, but it seems to be addressing themes of (in)stability, brokenness and repair, the desire to believe versus the impulse to shut out belief, openness (“The house cannot be closed”), (dis)enchantment, the mother-child bond, and safety and danger (the Christmas story, like faith itself, characterized by both). I can’t decide if the “blank” in the final tercet sounds hopeful or bleak: does it connote possibility or lack? And is the mother suggesting in the final line (a repurposing of the final line from stanza 15) that what’s most real to her is not Mary and the baby Jesus but herself and her own child, right there in that moment?—or is she finding a point of kinship with Mother Mary in the love she feels for her offspring?

Source: Open Shutters (Knopf, 2003)

7. “Nativity” by Li-Young Lee: “What is the world?” asks a little boy in the darkness; and again as an adult. A poem of spiritual questing, Li-Young Lee’s “Nativity” deals with existential questions, ending with a tercet that evokes Isaac Watts’s famous carol line “Let every heart prepare him room.” Within us we must make a manger, a “safe place,” to receive the wild God.

Source: Book of My Nights (BOA Editions, 2001)

8. “Nazareth” by Drew Jackson: Ancient Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, was an insignificant village that many believed no good could come out of (see John 1:46). This poem by public theologian Drew Jackson accentuates Jesus’s origins there, his identity as a “southsider” (Nazareth is in southern Galilee). Today some urban neighborhoods on the “South Side” are disparaged, their residents dismissed as poor and lacking education and potential. God chose to incarnate in a rural neighborhood with a similar reputation, not simply dropping in and then leaving but, as the second person of the Trinity, being formed and nurtured in that environment. “Nazareth” is from Jackson’s debut poetry collection, in which he works his way through the first eight chapters of Luke’s Gospel, drawing out the theme of liberation and making contemporary connections.

Source: God Speaks Through Wombs: Poems on God’s Unexpected Coming (InterVarsity, 2021) | https://drewejackson.com/

9. “The Visitation” by Calvin B. LeCompte Jr.: The poet imagines the fields that Mary passes on her way to her cousin Elizabeth’s house joining in the Magnificat, praising the Savior in her womb.

Source: I Sing of a Maiden: The Mary Book of Verse, ed. Sister M. Thérèse (Macmillan, 1947)

10. “My Darling” by Alexandra Barylski: Mary and Joseph are cuddling in bed as she reflects on the divine interventions that brought and kept them together. The poem references the legend, originating in the second-century Protoevangelium of James and repeated in the seventh-century Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, that Joseph was chosen to wed Mary when from his staff, submitted to the high priest along with those of other single men, there miraculously emerged a dove. Mary expresses appreciation for Joseph’s “visionary love,” patience, and courage in their relationship, his spiritual leadership and support.

Source: Reformed Journal, May 11, 2021

Mynheer, Nicholas_Annunciation
Nicholas Mynheer (British, 1958–), Annunciation, 2017. Oil on handmade paper, 20 × 20 cm.

11. “A Blessing for the New Baby” by Luci Shaw: The speakers of this poem give a lovely benediction over Christ—preincarnate and then embryonic in the first stanza, then out of the womb in the second and third.

Source: Accompanied by Angels: Poems of the Incarnation (Eerdmans, 2006) | https://lucishaw.com/

12. “Love’s Delights” by Meister Eckhart, rendered by Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows: The medieval German mystic Meister Eckhart didn’t write poetry, but many of his sermons have a poetic quality to them, so contemporary poet Mark S. Burrows and writer Jon M. Sweeney, working from an English translation of the Middle High German by Frank Tobin, reworked select excerpts into verse. Adapted from a sermon Meister Eckhart preached on Isaiah 60:1, this poem meditates on the downward movement of love that raises up.

Source: Jon M. Sweeney and Mark S. Burrows, Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart: Meditations for the Restless Soul (Hampton Roads, 2017)

13. “Word Become Flesh” by Seth Wieck: Pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing take a toll on the body. Voiced by Mary, this poem highlights the bodily realities of Jesus’s first coming—Mary swollen, bruised, cracked, and bleeding. She was wounded for our transgressions, in the sense that she endured kicks to the ribs, postpartum hemorrhoids, etc., in order to bring forth our Savior, and by these wounds, because they gave life to Jesus, our healing was made possible. The last sentence is a zinger. Mary gives (physical) birth to Jesus, and he gives (spiritual) birth to her.

Source: Fathom, December 21, 2017 | https://www.sethwieck.com/

14. “Prince of Peace” by Brian Volck: The poet provides his own introduction to this poem on his website: “Octavian Augustus, first emperor of Rome, was known by many titles, including Divi Filius (Son of God) and Princeps Pacis (Prince of Peace). An inscription in Asia Minor states that Augustus’s birth ‘has been for the whole world the beginning of the gospel (εύαγγέλιον) concerning him.’ How strange, then, to use the same names for a contemporaneous but obscure Palestinian Jew, whose understanding of peace, politics, and power was so radically different. How strange to have so long diluted the scandal of the gospel (good news) with accommodations to an Augustan vision of a peace built on the use or threat of lethal violence. Here’s a Christmas poem calling attention to that contrast in a conscious act against forgetting.”

Source: Flesh Becomes Word (Dos Madres, 2013) | https://brianvolck.com/

15. “The Burning Babe” by Robert Southwell: Consisting of sixteen lines in iambic heptameter, this poem by the Jesuit martyr-saint Robert Southwell [previously] relates a mystical vision of the Christ child, who appears to the narrator on a cold winter’s night, enflamed and hovering in midair. The poem develops the metaphor of the love of Christ as a fiery furnace that both warms and purifies.

Source: St Peter’s Complaint, and Other Poems (London, 1595). Public Domain.

McNichols, William Hart_Robert Southwell and the Burning Babe
William Hart McNichols (American, 1949–), Holy Poet-Martyr St. Robert Southwell and the Burning Babe, 2015. Acrylic on wood. [purchase reproduction]

16. “Advent 1966” by Denise Levertov: This poem is shocking in its horror. Written in 1966, it picks up Southwell’s image of the Burning Babe and transposes it to the napalmed villages of Vietnam, where children were being physically (not symbolically or ethereally, as in Southwell’s poem) set on fire by chemical weapons deployed by the US military. Denise Levertov [previously], who was an antiwar activist as well as a poet, uses repetition to strong effect, conveying a sense of the seemingly relentless carnage (the war produced an estimated two million civilian casualties, more than half the total number). Though addressing a specific historical event, this elegy for the innocent provokes us to consider where similar atrocities are happening today.

Source: To Stay Alive (New Directions, 1971); compiled in Making Peace, ed. Peggy Rosenthal (New Directions, 2006)

17. “Christmas Eve” by Christina Rossetti: The Victorian poet Christina Rossetti [previously] opens this lyric with two paradoxes that characterize Christmas—bright darkness and chilly warmth—referencing the general mood of cheer and comfort that coexists with the bleak English midwinter. Why this mirth? Because “Christmas bringeth Jesus, / Brought for us so low.” Jesus was brought down from heaven in the Incarnation, but he would be brought lower still: his spirits sunken in Gethsemane, his body buried in a grave. The second stanza evokes a wedding: dressed in a bridal gown of gauzy snow, earth receives her heavenly Bridegroom.

Source: Time Flies: A Reading Diary (London, 1885); compiled in The Complete Poems (Penguin, 2001). Public Domain.

18. “Hill Christmas” by R. S. Thomas: In a poor rural Welsh village, parishioners make their way across snowy fields, weather-beaten, on Christmas to feed their bodies and souls with a snow-white bread loaf and crimson wine. In the celebration of the Eucharist, they hear love cry “in their heart’s manger.” Then they return to the day’s chores. I think the last line refers to a wayside crucifix.

Source: Laboratories of the Spirit (Macmillan, 1975); compiled in Collected Poems, 1945–1990 (Dent, 1993)

19. “back in the day” by Carl Winderl: In a practice known as “setting lambs on,” when a baby lamb dies in birth, sheep farmers will often take a live lamb (an orphan, or a twin or triplet from another ewe) and cover it in the skin of the deceased one so that, when the grieving mother smells the familiar scent of her deceased offspring, she accepts the lamb as her own. In Carl Winderl’s poem, Mother Mary reflects on that practice and has a premonition of a dead lamb.

Source: Christian Century, December 27, 2023

20. “Hymn 4 on the Nativity of Christ” by Ephrem the Syrian: St. Ephrem, a church father from the fourth century, wrote his theology in verse and is one of the most significant Early Christian hymnists. His Nativity hymns are my favorite; I’m particularly struck in Hymn IV by his meditation on how the Christ who suckles at Mary’s breast also gives suck to the whole world. “He is the Living Breast of living breath,” as Kathleen E. McVey translates the Syriac.

Source: Ephrem the Syrian: Hymns, trans. Kathleen E. McVey (Classics of Western Spirituality) (Paulist Press, 1989)

Maria lactans (Ethiopian)
Maria lactans, late 18th century. Fresco, Church of Narga Selassie, Dek Island, Lake Tana, Ethiopia. Photo: Alan Davey.

21. “Nativity” by Scott Cairns: This is the first in a pair of ekphrastic poems called “Two Icons,” in which the poet, who is Greek Orthodox, describes an icon from his home prayer corner. The first three stanzas engage in constructive wordplay: Jesus is wrapped in swaddling bands by his mother, and she is rapt—enraptured, wholly absorbed—by him. She holds him in her gaze and in her hands, and is beholden to him. Icons are about just that: beholding Christ and the sacred mysteries and deepening our affection for the One who holds us in affection. In Nativity icons our gaze is directed to “the core / where all the journeys meet, appalling crux and hallowed cave and womb,” where we are beckoned, like the magi, to bow before the incarnate God.

Source: Compass of Affection: Poems New and Selected (Paraclete, 2006)

22. “Star of the Nativity” by Joseph Brodsky: The Nobel Prize–winning Russian poet Joseph Brodsky was born into a Jewish family, but he was captivated by the story of Jesus’s birth and wrote many poems about it. The final stanza of this one gives us the unique perspective of the Star of Bethlehem, looking down—the Father’s beaming pride.

Source: Nativity Poems (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001)

23. “Wise Women Also Came” by Jan Richardson: The Gospel of Matthew tells us that when Jesus was born, wise men came from the east to worship him. But wise women came too, Jan Richardson surmises. They came during Mary’s labor—midwives assisting with the birth. They came with lamps, fresh water, and blankets.

Source: Night Visions (Wanton Gospeller, 2010)

Richardson, Jan_Wise Women Also Came
Jan Richardson (American, 1967–), Wise Women Also Came, 1995. Collage. [purchase reproduction]

24. “Green River Christmas” by John Shea: Theologian and storyteller John Shea reflects on how, after experiencing something scary or unpleasant (like getting a shot or a teeth cleaning), mothers often give their child a treat. Christmas is a kind of supreme treat after the penitential season of Advent, during which we confronted the state of our spiritual health and remedied any shortfalls. Think, too, of the liturgy of (somber) confession and (sweet) pardon every Sunday at church, a prelude to the feast of bread and wine. At the Lord’s Table, we are fed—the gifts of God for the people of God. The Eucharist is the subtext of the final stanza, where Shea describes the presentation of Jesus in the temple forty days after his birth. There he is received by “the long-starved arms / of Simeon and Anna.” They had hungered for salvation, endured a long period of waiting; now they are filled.

Source: Seeing Haloes: Christmas Poems to Open the Heart (Liturgical Press, 2017)

25. “Taking Down the Tree” by Jane Kenyon: “Tick, tick, the desiccated needles drop.” This poem is about the passing of time—the death of another year—and the glumness that often sets in after the holidays are over, but it’s also about the storage of memories. In many households, Christmas ornaments are a multigenerational collection of memories. As with hanging them on the tree, taking them off and packing them away is a ritual that may prompt us to revisit certain past experiences or periods in our life. After we unplug the stringed lights and wrap up the baubles for safekeeping, then what? How will we inhabit the twelve months until next Christmas?

Source: Collected Poems (Graywolf, 2005)

Cradling the darkness together, kindling the light

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment
Gudim, Laurie_Mary and Elizabeth
Mary and Elizabeth by Laurie Gudim

Two women, both pregnant, greet each other—and an instantaneous bond is formed between and deep within them, confirming their identities as bearers of life. In this astonishing moment of communion, each is strengthened in her calling.

This is the story of Mary and Elizabeth, but it is also the story of each of us. Truth always encompasses both the particular and the universal—which is why the ancient biblical account stirs such deep chords when women hear it.

In Luke’s description of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth, profound joy is predicated upon fear. The angel has just announced to the younger woman that she is to give birth; and she has accepted God’s calling to a pregnancy out of wedlock, in ancient Judea a crime of adultery against one’s betrothed. The punishment for such a sin, as Mary would have known, was death by stoning. This cultural background gives pointed meaning to the report that Mary “went with haste into the hill country . . .” The image is not so much Christendom’s traditional view of a young mother-to-be paying a visit to a beloved kinswoman but of a terrified, unmarried woman (perhaps, indeed, only a teenager) fleeing for her life to the temporary asylum of a “safe house” in the hills. The aged Elizabeth, the woman whom Mary seeks out for comfort, protection, and advice, is herself caught up in tenuous circumstances: well advanced in years and beyond the biological age of childbearing, Elizabeth must certainly have had her own collection of fears and hopes about her forthcoming delivery.

Both are women on the fringe of their society. The stirring words recalling their encounter and the spark of Life that it caused to leap within them weave a story of hope overcoming deathly fear. It is a reaffirmation of the importance of our mutual support, our community as women, in enabling us to continue bearing life into the world.

—Rosemary Catalano Mitchell and Gail Anderson Ricciuti, Birthings and Blessings: Liberating Worship Services for the Inclusive Church (New York: Crossroad, 1992), 19

Roundup: Visitation hymn, word games with George Herbert, The Message set to music, and more

Victoria Emily Jones1 Comment

HYMN FOR THE FEAST OF THE VISITATION: “Somewhere I hear the church bells ringing” by Gracia Grindal: There are many church songs on the Magnificat, the canticle Mary sings in Luke 1:46–55 when she greets her cousin Elizabeth at Elizabeth’s home in the hills of Judea, but very few hymns, at least in Protestantism, that narrate the Visitation event that occasions it, including Elizabeth’s glad affirmations. Gracia Grindal’s “Somewhere I hear the church bells ringing” is one example of the latter—a four-stanza hymn she wrote in 2010 for the Feast of the Visitation, celebrated every year on May 31, with Elizabeth as the poetic speaker. The hymn captures the excitement of the Messiah coming into the world, and references an Alfred Lord Tennyson poem along the way.

On her blog Hymn for the Day, Grindal provides the lyrics and a reflection on this hymn, as well as sheet music that uses a melody Daniel Charles Damon wrote specifically for the text, which is also available in Damon’s collection Garden of Joy (Hope Publishing, 2011). For public-domain tune alternatives, Grindal suggests DISTRESS or KEDRON from William Walker’s Southern Harmony (1835), or the Renaissance tune by Thomas Tallis known as TALLIS’ CANON—all three of which are commonly used with Fred Pratt Green’s twentieth-century hymn “O Christ, the Healer, We Have Come.”

A professor emerita at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minnesota, Gracia Grindal is a prolific writer and translator with expertise in Scandinavian hymns. She has served on several hymn committees and boards and is the author of A Treasury of Faith, a three-volume series of over seven hundred hymn texts on the lessons of the Revised Common Lectionary (Wayne Leupold Editions, 2006–9); Preaching from Home: The Stories of Seven Lutheran Women Hymn Writers (Eerdmans, 2011); an English translation of Hallgrímur Pétursson’s Icelandic Passíusálmar (Hymns of the Passion) (Hallgrím Church, 2020); and Jesus the Harmony: Gospel Sonnets for 366 Days (Fortress, 2021), among many other books.

+++

SUBSTACK POSTS:

>> “The Slow Way: On Being ‘at Peace and in Place’” by Micha Boyett, The Slow Way: When her third child was born with Down syndrome, Micha Boyett, an emerging writer, knew she needed to release herself from the anxiety of producing and focus on parenting; she decided to slow down in order to be faithful to her son. Drawing on themes in her new book, Blessed Are the Rest of Us: How Limits and Longing Make Us Whole, Boyett reflects in this post on the slow, remarkable, intricate work God does when we “allow all that we are to nourish the place we find ourselves”; when we let go of plans and rest in the goodness of what God has for us at this moment. “Rest is something that nourishes our long-term lives. And rarely, if ever, does rest improve our influence, our finances, or our platforms,” she writes. “Rest is an invisible gift to ourselves that results in invisible growth, invisible peace, invisible relational wholeness.”

>> “Word Games with George Herbert” by Grace Hamman, Medievalish: This Herbert poem was new to me, and what a delight it is! It consists of five tercets, each with an end word that gradually diminishes through loss of a letter with each subsequent line—e.g., CHARM, HARM, ARM. Playing this word game, Herbert develops the conceit of himself as a tree in God’s enclosed garden-orchard.

Peach (Tradescants’ Orchard)
“The Nuingetonn Peeche” from the Tradescants’ Orchard, 1620–29. Oxford, Bodleian Library MS. Ashmole 1461, fol. 105r.

I always enjoy the literary works, which are mostly medieval or early modern, that Dr. Grace Hamman explores through her newsletter and podcast—and the “Prayer from the Past” she curates for each newsletter sign-off, like the one in this edition, by Richard Brathwait (1588–1673).

+++

SONG: “Te Atua” (Dear Lord): I heard this popular New Zealand hīmene (hymn) in the Taika Waititi–directed movie Boy (2010) (such a great movie!). It’s a traditional Māori Christian text, set to the Appalachian folk tune NEW BRITAIN (best known for its pairing with “Amazing Grace”) and performed in 1997 by the St. Joseph’s Māori Girls’ College Choir, featuring soloist Maisey Rika. The arrangement is by the college’s principal, Georgina Kingi. Bearing echoes of Jesus’s parable of the sower, this song is particularly appropriate for the season of Ordinary Time that we’re now in, during which the seeds that were planted in us in the first half of the Christian year germinate, grow, and bear fruit.

E te Atua kua ruia nei 
Ö purapura pai 
Hömai e koe he ngákau hou 
Kia tupu ake ai 

E lhu kaua e tukua 
Kia whakangaromia 
Me whakatupu ake ia 
Kia kitea ai ngá hua 

A má te Wairua Tapu rá 
Mátou e tiaki 
Kei hoki ki te mahi hé 
Ö mátou ngákau höu 
Dear Lord, you have spread
Your seeds of goodness
Give us new hearts
So that these seeds may grow

Dear Lord, do not allow
These seeds to be lost
But rather let them grow
So that the results may be seen

May the Holy Spirit
Guide us
Lest our hearts should
Return to our evil ways

[source]

+++

NEW ALBUMS:

>> Message Songs by the Porter’s Gate: For this album, the Porter’s Gate Worship Project partnered with the Eugene Peterson Center for Christian Imagination at Western Theological Seminary to set to music excerpts from Peterson’s best-selling translation of the Bible, The Message. Included are adaptations of Psalms 5, 16, 27, and 121, Matthew 11:28–30, Luke 15, and John 1—by a range of songwriters. The album release this month coincided with the publication of The Message Anniversary Edition, available from NavPress.

>> Volume 10 (Ordinary Time) of The Soil and The Seed Project: This double album—which is completely free!—features twenty-four songs by musicians of faith under the direction of Seth Thomas Crissman, a Mennonite pastor, educator, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Harrisonburg, Virginia. Here’s one of the songs, “The Way Your Kingdom Comes” by Lindsey FitzGerald Stine, sung by her and her sister Rachel FitzGerald:

The music is one element of a larger project that also includes liturgies and newly commissioned artworks. Learn about the project’s free summer concert series on their Events page, which will feature contributors to the most recent album and other friends.

Ten Songs of Joy for Gaudete Sunday

Victoria Emily Jones2 Comments

The third Sunday of Advent is known as Gaudete Sunday, gaudete (pronounced GOW-deh-tay) (Latin for “rejoice”) being the first word of the introit of the day’s Mass, taken from Philippians 4:4–6 and Psalm 85:1:

Gaudete in Domino semper íterum díco, gaudéte: modéstia véstra nóta sit ómnibus homínibus: Dóminus prope est. Nihil sollíciti sítis: sed in ómni oratióne petitiónes véstrae innotéscant apud Déum. Benedixísti, Dómine, térram túam: avertísti captivitátem Jácob.

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your forbearance be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious over anything; but in all manner of prayer, let your requests be made known unto God. Lord, you have blessed your land; you have put an end to Jacob’s captivity.

It is customary for priests to swap out their purple vestments for pink today, and for those who use an Advent wreath to light not a purple candle but a pink one. Some churches favor a spare aesthetic in their sanctuaries for the first two weeks of Advent but break out the flowers for this the third. The approximate halfway point of the penitential Advent season, Gaudete Sunday is a special time to rejoice in the nearness of God’s coming as well as God’s presence with us here even now in the waiting, and to receive a foretaste of the bigger celebration to come on Christmas Day.

Here are ten songs for you to enjoy this Gaudete Sunday. If you’d rather listen to them as a YouTube playlist, click here.

Richardson, Jan_Visitation
The Hour of Lauds: Visitation by Jan Richardson [for sale]

1. “Songs of Joy” by Garrison Doles, written late 1990s, on A Songmaker’s Christmas, 2012: “Songs of joy we hopefully sing, expanding our spirits, the season to know . . .” So opens this song by the late singer-songwriter Garrison Doles (d. 2013) [previously]. In 2009 his wife, the artist Jan Richardson, created a video combining the song with five of the seven collages from her Advent Hours cycle (which can be purchased as reproductions). Read the lyrics and songwriter’s statement here.

2. “My Soul Doth Magnify the Lord” by O’Landa Draper and the Associates, on Live…A Celebration of Praise, 1994: A trailblazing gospel choir director, O’Landa Draper was one of the top gospel artists of the nineties. This song of his is based on the Magnificat, the praise song Mary sings in the company of her cousin Elizabeth following the conception of Christ (see Luke 1).

3. “El burrito de Belén” (The Little Donkey of Bethlehem) by Hugo Cesar Blanco, 1972, performed by the band Matute, 2020: This is a Venezuelan carol about a person riding their donkey, with hurried excitement, from the sabanero (savanna) to Bethlehem to see the newborn Christ. Read the lyrics and translation here.

4. “Ecce mundi gaudium” (Behold the Joy of the World), England, 13th century, arranged and performed by the Mediæval Bæbes on Worldes Blysse, 1998: Written in Latin, this thirteenth-century carol is about the Virgin giving birth to the Son, our joy—announced to the shepherds by an angel and to the magi by a star. Despite the upbeat tempo throughout, the last two verses are about Herod’s raging and the Massacre of the Innocents. The soloist is Katharine Blake, the founder and musical director of Mediæval Bæbes. Read the original lyrics here, clicking on individual lines for the English translation.

5. “Kya Din Khushi Ka Aaya” (क्या दिन खुशी का आया) (What a Happy Day), performed by Akshay Mathews, 2021: A Hindi Christmas carol from India. Read the lyrics here.

6. “Repeat the Sounding Joy,” a fragment from “Joy to the World” arranged by Craig Courtney, performed by the Capital University Chapel Choir, 2019: A super-fun, one-minute choral work.

7. “Now Let Us Sing,” traditional, adapt. John L. Bell, 1995, performed by Katarina Ridderstedt, 2015: Katarina Ridderstedt (née Lundberg) is a rhythm teacher, musician, cantor, and choir director from Gotland, Sweden, who records music under the name Musikat. This video of hers introduced me to a charming little quatrain whose origins I don’t know (it’s credited as “Traditional”), but this version comes from Scotland’s Iona Community [previously]: “Now let us sing with joy and mirth, / praising the one who gave us birth. / Let every voice rise and attend / to God whose love shall never end.”

(Update, 1/6/25: “Now let us sing” is of Scottish origin, first appearing during the Protestant Reformation in the congregational song collection The Gude and Godlie Ballatis; the earliest extant edition of this book is from 1567, but it is thought to have been originally published in 1540. The tune was originally a drinking tune. For his rendition, published in Come All You People: Shorter Songs for Worship, John L. Bell essentially rewrote the first stanza, retaining only the first line of the original.)

8. “Brother” by Jorge Ben Jor, on A Tábua de Esmeralda, 1974: Known by the stage name Jorge Ben or (since the 1980s) Jorge Ben Jor, Jorge Duílio Lima Menezes (b. 1939) is a Brazilian singer-songwriter and musician whose characteristic style fuses elements of samba, funk, rock, and bossa nova. In this song he enjoins us to prepare a joyful path for the coming Christ—who is both Lord and friend—with love, flowers, and music.

9. “Alleluia, He Is Coming (I Looked Up)” by Martha E. Butler, 1979: This song is sometimes used in church services for Palm Sunday or Easter, but I think it makes a fitting Advent song as well—especially with the newer last verse that is sometimes used, as in the first video below. “Alleluia, he [Christ] is coming! Alleluia, he is here,” the refrain proclaims. Read about the inspiration behind the song, in the words of the songwriter, here. Allow me to sneak in two different performances. The first is by Donna Rutledge, Becky Buller, and Todd Green of First Baptist Church of Manchester, Tennessee, from 2020; theirs is a lovely rendition with strong vocals and a poignant violin part, but I do prefer a brisker pace (listening to the video at a playback speed of 1.25 is perfect, in my estimation):

The second is by the South African group Worship House, from their 2016 album Project 5 (Live in Johannesburg):

10. “Joy Will Come” by Paul Zach: The refrain of this song by Paul Zach of Virginia is based on Psalm 30:5b: “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” I also hear echoes of Psalms 18 and 121 throughout. The song is a reminder that through the dark nights we experience, we have hope; we have a Savior who will not abandon us.