My hopes of blogging a bit in 2025 were forlorn! This is my first time at the keyboard bashing out some thoughts since I posted last year’s family newsletter. Hopefully, 2025’s will come in due course. But there have been a few ideas sloshing around in my head that I wanted to commit to screen. The main ideas are about Advent, but the first is pre-Advent.

The last Sunday before Advent begins is known as the Feast of Christ the King, which is both retrospective and prospective, chiefly the latter with its apocalyptic themes and climactic nature. A favourite hymn for this particular Sunday is Charles Wesley’s ‘Lo! He comes with clouds descending.’ But this year I returned to an old favourite of mine, ‘Allelujah sing to Jesus,’ by William Chatterton. Dix (1837-98) sung to the great Welsh tune Hyfrydol. Very often I turn to the resources of YouTube to find a version I can listen to (using ear pods!) and conduct in the privacy of my study, and I found a great rendition by a group I’d never come across before. I enjoyed it so much that I began to explore their other material and have been listening to it to. (Music is an important part of my spiritual life.) Here it is, sung by the Catholic Music Initiative and I hope you enjoy it..

As per standard chocolate calendars, Advent is so often seen as a ‘countdown to Christmas,’ when in fact it is much more than that. Within the traditions of the church, Advent is a time of personal preparation, of repentance and hope, of looking back to the first coming of Jesus and looking forward to his coming in glory. I love the subtitle of Fleming Rutledge’s book, Advent: The Once and Future Coming of Jesus Christ. This is a time that is pregnant with the drama of a story that is reaching a climax in the narrative, full of mystery and wonder, yet knowing there is much more to come.

Over the course of the last years I have dipped into this book, reflecting on her sermons at different points on the Advent journey, for the road is not smooth, but rough, not straight, but winding, not only about light, but also darkness, not only joy and celebration, but also sorrow and lament. All of these aspects of The Greatest Story Ever Told are necessary to prepare our hearts for the coming of the Gift.

The Gift is also the greatest of all gifts – God’s gift of his Son, coming in flesh as a tiny baby, taking on our humanity in order to redeem us. I picked up an Advent habit from a Facebook friend (I forget whom – but thank you!), that helps me explore the nature of the Gift so that when Christmas Day comes, it/He will be received with great joy and thanksgiving. The Gospel of Luke has 24 chapters, and from 1-24 December I read a chapter of the Gospel every day. Of course, among Luke’s stories of Jesus are the birth narratives that we know so well, stories of Gabriel the Archangel, of Zechariah, Elizabeth and John, of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem (not to an Inn!), of angels and shepherds. But these are only the start, and Luke tells his stories of Jesus’s life and ministry, his death and resurrection with such artistry that he draws his readers in, unwrapping the Gift. Today, I began that practice with Luke 1, and I know that I will continue to learn more about how precious that Gift is.

I encourage readers to dive into Advent wholeheartedly. Don’t be distracted by the glitz and glamour of how our society jumps straight into the Christmas season, and does so in a way that ignores the Gift. Take time to prepare yourself for his coming so that, whatever lesser gifts come your way on 25th December, you will be able to receive the true Gift with unspeakable joy.