Advent Joy: Jesus Christ arriving embodied…
We are putting up our Advent reflections each week through December on here. Scroll to the bottom to see weeks one, two and three if you are catching up. Our final reflection follows directly here…
Week four: Embodied Worship
In his insightful book Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (London: SPCK, 2008), Kenneth Bailey gives some cultural context to the circumstances surrounding the birth of Jesus. Rather than there being no room in any commercial inns in Bethlehem at the time Mary and Joseph arrived, the Greek wording of Luke’s gospel suggests that the problem was that the guest room (Greek “katalyma”) in the ordinary private home where Mary and Joseph landed up was already full. Joseph was descended from King David, and Bethlehem was known colloquially as the “city of David” (even though it was a small village at the time). Because of their family connections, and the ubiquitous culture of hospitality, Joseph and Mary would actually have been welcome in any household there. (It would have been shameful for any family to turn them away, in fact.) It was only because of the census that most people’s guest rooms would have been full of relatives, who were all travelling to their ancestral home of Bethlehem to be registered at the same time. This explains how Mary and Joseph came to be in the main family room of an ordinary household, and how Jesus was laid in a manger, which would have probably been sunk into the floor of the living area, just above the area where the family’s animals would have been kept at night time. Ordinary families brought their animals into the house overnight to keep them safe from predators or from theft and also so they could help provide warmth for the family. Below is a diagram of the layout of a typical ordinary village home of this sort.
It’s interesting to note how, in our westernised popular retellings of the nativity story, we have managed to turn a story demonstrating beautiful traditional Palestinian hospitality into the worst kind of inhospitality of our own culture, with grumpy innkeepers and “no vacancy” signs. It wouldn’t have occurred to anyone in Bethlehem at the time to turn Mary and Joseph away, even if Mary hadn’t been heavily pregnant. But as it was, there would have been that added reason to quickly make room for them, which this family must have done in their own space.
In one sense, the whole story of Jesus’ birth seems to be about hospitality given and received in a beautiful rhythm. The hospitality of the family who owned the house, the guests already staying in the guest room of the house and the animals sharing the space. The hospitality of Mary and Joseph in accepting whatever was offered to them (hospitality goes both ways, after all). The hospitality of the angels towards shepherds (“Do not be afraid…”) and the terrified shepherds of the angels. And later of Magi, offering expensive and significant gifts and even of the universe / the whole created order, represented by the mysterious star that guided them. As Kenneth Bailey observes (p.55), “At his birth, Jewish shepherds and Gentile Arabs came together in adoration of a child in a manger”.
The easiest way to kill a King (especially a Jewish Messiah, who would be a threat to any existing political leader or monarch) would be to do it before they even leave their mother’s arms (witness how Herod tried this out in his infamous “massacre of the innocents” which is remembered later in December, in response to hearing of this birth from the Magi). Given this reality, what a truly extraordinary thing that God’s hospitality extended beyond the Jewish people to the Gentiles, as well as to poor shepherds. How risky to entrust the Saviour of the world to this sort of situation!
Because of the situation of his birth, the animals would have been among the first to see the newborn Jesus. As we prepared these notes, we wondered how the animals regarded Jesus? Would their regard be gentler or more hostile than ours? How would they have responded? Would they have recognised a newborn and wanted to nurture him or even lick him clean? Would they have gone to eat any straw under him and been shooed away by the humans? To them, would this have seemed normal or strange? Jesus had interrupted their world too, after all.
Some time ago I was very struck by hearing the famous words of John 3.16 differently, with the insight that this verse says “the world”, rather than just “humans”: “…For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life…” The Greek word for “world” in this passage is “cosmos”. Taking us right back to the Cosmic Christ that we considered last week, and the concept that all of creation will, because of this happening, participate with us “in Christ” eternally, ultimately.
Icon
We came across the icon below as we were looking for some insight into how the animals might have related to the birth of Jesus. We thought, just by looking at it, and by the places we saw it shared online, that the image was Ethiopian, which worked well with our attempt in these Advent materials to amplify systemically silenced voices. However, after a bit of research, we discovered that the artist is actually the white Dutch Namibian-born priest Revd Johannes Van Der Bijl. When we got in touch to ask whether we could use it for these notes, he replied, giving us an insight into its origin:
Hi…nearly ten years ago now, I was asked by the Bishop of the Horn of Africa to start a theological college in Gambella, Ethiopia. While the two major people groups were not highlanders, they were familiar enough with the iconography of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church so I could use icons to teach the majority oral learners in the college. That is why the home in the background is a tukel…the traditional huts in the region. However, I soon discovered that oral learners are not necessarily visual learners so I scrapped the project…
This whole encounter gave us cause to reflect on the cross cultural nature of so many retellings of the nativity story, on the richness of the journey discovering more about them, but also on the need to take the time to find out what the power relationships might be among the voices we listen to and share.
It is only since researching these materials that I have found out that Kelly Latimore, who created the other two icons we have used, is a man in his late 30s who began painting icons when he lived in a Franciscan friary. Somehow that surprised me, but also I found it heartening!
Music
Part of our inspiration for this entire Advent series was a particular piece of music by the American composer Morten Lauridsen. The words are inspired by reflection on the animals who were among the first beings to witness the birth of Jesus Christ the Son of God. The words describe this birth as a “wonderful sacrament” – a visible sign of an invisible reality, shaking the cosmos. You may want to dwell with the icon above as you listen to the music below…
Listen to O magnum mysterium by Morten Lauridsen here
Lyrics:
O magnum mysterium
Et admirabile sacramentum
Ut animalia viderent Dominum natum
Jacentem in praesepio!
Beata Virgo, cujus viscera
Meruerunt portare
Dominum Christum
Alleluia!
Translation:
O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that animals should see the newborn Lord,
lying in a manger!
Blessed is the virgin whose womb
was worthy to bear
the Lord, Jesus Christ.
Alleluia!
Bible
Luke 2.6-7 and 15-20 As you read meditatively, you may also like to reflect on the questions: What are we invited to let go of, in our previous readings of the nativity story? How might we, as a community, become more hospitable and welcoming to those on the margins? How can our worship of Jesus be a hospitable space?
Lectio (read)
Read the passage slowly several times, with pauses in between. Notice which particular word, phrase or image sticks in your mind.
Meditatio (meditate)
In the silence, chew over the word, phrase or image that stuck in your mind. Ask God; “Why did this stick out to me? What are you drawing my attention to?” Stay with this question.
Oratio (responding / praying)
Pray with your word/phrase/image. Offer it back to God in some way. What is the deep longing within you or need in the world that this keys into? Be really true to yourself in how you pray (speak out loud or stay silent, write, draw or create something, use movement, listen to music – do whatever will help you to offer your prayer to God).
Contemplatio (contemplation)
Simply rest in the love of God. Trust that God, that Love, is present with you in this moment.
Body Prayers
We embody our Advent body prayers for the whole created order… the invitation is for us to embody these prayers outside if that is possible…
“Let joy make a home in this flesh.”: (words by Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies[London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2024]; movement by Soobie). If you are able to enact this prayer outside, consider maybe touching a leaf, the soil, a tree trunk, or your pet (if they let you!!) as you say “…in this flesh”. Embody the other people or created beings you are praying for, so that as you say the words / make the movements, you are praying for them as well as yourself. Click here to see the movement here and join in…
God of this night. Consider doing this body prayer outside at night time, too; aware of embracing all the stars and planets and every creature living in our universe in your prayer (as you say the words / make the movements, imagine you are embodying all created beings, praying for them all)… (words by Steven Shakespeare, from The Earth Cries Glory[Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2019] movement by Soobie):
“God of this night
Protect us, surround us, watch over us
God of this night
Renew us, deepen us, dream us
God of this night
Wait with us for the coming dawn”
Click here to see the movement and join in….
Chant
We continue to en-chant our advent by singing this prayer. Maybe consider singing this outside as well, and/or with others: “I will wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him…in his word is my hope” (words from Psalm 130). Click the words to hear the chant and join in…
Over to you…
If you create anything in response to this Advent journey, we would love for you to share it more widely. One of the easiest ways of sharing it is to post a picture / your thoughts in our public Facebook group. Just go on Facebook and search for “Contemplative Fire”. Or you can email anything to me on alidorey1@gmail.com if you are happy for us to share your offering more widely, perhaps on here or within our community.
Compiled by CF Companions Soobie Whitfield and Revd Ali Dorey
Week three: Embodied mystery…
Our Advent reflections this year, themed on embodiment, are necessarily very physical. But as we draw closer to Christmas, the physical itself draws us towards the mystical. Perhaps the physical and mystical are converging in the embodiment, the incarnation, of Jesus Christ?
There were interruptions to the normal cycles of the natural world heralding the birth of Jesus Christ; a strange star in the East, a throng of angels who struck fear into the hearts of the shepherds. And humanly speaking, there were interruptions to the social strata of the day; that the birth took place in a normal household and that poor shepherds visited seems incongruous for the birth of a King. Yet later, mysterious foreigners (“Magi”) brought expensive gifts…
A paradox emerges between the embodied reality of the birth of a human boy and the mystical reverberations echoing beyond the physical event of this birth.
The icon Mary: Love forever being born by Kelly Latimore was inspired by this poem by Sr. Ilia Delio, which perhaps invites us to advent-ure (? If that can be a verb?!) with a depth of mystery and unknowing:
What do the stars say?
The light that meets our eyes after millions of years summons us to look beyond.
The dark that hovers over us is filled with light.
That underneath the appearance of the stable heavens is the bubbling energy of the universe.
We are forming, forming, forming and nothing can stop us.
There is a palpable power of attraction, pulling us toward we-no-not-where.
Love alone is the guide of the universe and the whole universe is in the human heart.
Tend to the heart and the power of love will name itself as God.
Sr. Ilia Delio’s poem and Kelly Latimore’s icon invite us to reflect on the Cosmic Christ. This is a mystical concept and theology that can blow your mind! We offer some catalysts below to help us to venture towards it. You might find it helpful to just focus on the key phrases in italics…
Richard Rohr:
“What most religion treats as separate (matter and Spirit, humanity and divinity) has never been separate from the beginning: Spirit is forever captured in matter, and matter is the place where Spirit shows itself. It is one sacred world.” https://cac.org/daily-meditations/one-sacred-world-and-the-final-omega-point-2015-03-26/
“There were clear statements in the New Testament giving a cosmic meaning to Christ (Colossians 1, Ephesians 1, John 1, 1 John 1, and Hebrews 1:1-4), and the schools of Paul and John were initially overwhelmed by the hope contained in this message. In the early Christian era, a few Eastern Fathers (such as Origen of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor) noticed that the Christ was clearly something older, larger, and different than Jesus himself. They mystically saw that Jesus is the union of human and divine in one person, and the Christ is the eternal union of matter and Spirit from the beginning of time.” https://cac.org/daily-meditations/universal-connection-2015-03-27/
“The first and cosmic incarnation of the Eternal Christ, the perfect co-inherence of matter and Spirit (Ephesians 1:3-11), happened at the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the human incarnation of that same Mystery a mere 2,000 years ago, when we were perhaps ready for this revelation. Christ is not Jesus’ last name, but the title of his historical and cosmic purpose. Jesus presents himself as the “Anointed” or Christened One who was human and divine united in one human body—as our model and exemplar. Peter seems to get this, at least once (Matthew 16:16), but like most of the church, he also seems to regress. Christ is our shortcut word for “The Body of God” or “God materialized.” This Christ is much bigger and older than either Jesus of Nazareth or the Christian religion, because the Christ is whenever the material and the divine co-exist—which is always and everywhere.” https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-cosmic-christ-2015-11-05/
Sr Ilia Delio (author of the poem above) in The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love (Orbis Books: 2013):
“Through his penetrating view of the universe Teilhard [de Chardin] found Christ present in the entire cosmos, from the least particle of matter to the convergent human community. ‘The Incarnation,’ he declared, ‘is a making new…of all the universe’s forces and powers.’ Personal divine love is invested organically with all of creation, in the heart of matter, unifying the world… The coming of the Cosmic Christ is not the same as the growth of the Christian religion. It is the unification of all things.” (p.127)
“…Every human person desires to love and to be loved, to belong to another, because we come from another. We are born social and relational. We yearn to belong, to be part of a larger whole that includes not only friends and family but neighbors, community, trees, flowers, sun, earth, stars. We are born of nature and are part of nature; that is, we are born into a web of life and are part of a web of life. We cannot know what this means, however, without seeing ourselves within the story of the Big Bang universe. Human life must be traced back to the time when life was deeply one, a Singularity, whereby the intensity of mass-energy exploded into consciousness. Deep in our DNA we belong to the stars, the trees, and the galaxies.
Deep within we long for unity because, at the most fundamental level, we are already one. We belong to one another because we have the same source of love; the love that flows through the trees is the same love that flows through my being… We are deeply connected in this flow of love, beginning on the level of nature where we are the closest of kin because the earth is our mother.” (pp.179-180)
Paul Smith (from the Centre for Christogenesis, 2018):
“Teilhard de Chardin says ‘I saw, as though in ecstasy, that through all of nature I was immersed in God’…The transcendent consciousness of resting in our own divinity really is, in fact, marked by ecstasy, blurred boundaries, and oneness with the world…”
Charlotte Wright (CF Companion, exploring Bruno Barnhart’s reflections in his book Second Simplicity for the first movement of our Pilgrimage in Everyday Life, 2024):
“One is the Silence of mystery and unknowing, the place of contemplation. Our place of contemplation is where our direct experience of contemplative knowing is a unitive experience of the Divine, where the opening of our consciousness to embracing Mystery, is an opening also to the Source. We become aware of our being as flowing from this unseen Source into visibility. We open and awaken to the abundance of the Source. We become aware of reality – as movement, emergence, as a present energy. At the centre of this unitive experience is the unitive Self, true self, Christ-self.”
Teilhard de Chardin in Writings in Time of War (HarperCollins, 1968):
“My starting-point is the fundamental initial fact that each one of us is perforce linked by all the material, organic and psychic strands of his being to all that surrounds him. Not only is he caught up in a network, he is carried along, too, by a stream. All around us, in whatever direction we look, there are both links and currents….The person, the human monad, is, like every monad, essentially cosmic. …I shall allow another picture to emerge — at first in apparent opposition to the dreams of the Earth, but in reality to complete and correct them — that of the inexpressible Cosmos of matter and of the new life, the Body of Christ, real and mystical, unity and multiplicity… I shall let the song of my life drift now here, now there — sink down to the depths, rise to the heights above us, turn back to the ether from which all things came, reach out to the more-than-man, and culminate in the incarnate God-man.”
“We think that the universe began 13 or 14 billion years ago, with the Big Bang. At that point only the lightest elements existed, such as hydrogen, helium and minuscule amounts of lithium…
The first stars burned their fuel quickly and were able to make only a few elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. When those stars went supernova – exploded powerfully – and expelled the elements they had produced, they seeded the next generation of stars. Scientists can tell the temperature and age of stars from their colour. Hotter stars burn blue, while cooler and older stars burn red. The next generation of seeded stars were then able to produce other, heavier elements such as carbon, magnesium and nearly every element in the periodic table. Any element in your body that is heavier than iron has travelled through at least one supernova.
‘So it’s very likely that there are a whole bunch of different stars that have contributed the elements we see in our own solar system, our planet and those found within you.’…
Most of the elements of our bodies were formed in stars over the course of billions of years and multiple star lifetimes. However, it’s also possible that some of our hydrogen (which makes up roughly 9.5% of our bodies) and lithium, which our body contains in very tiny trace amounts, originated from the Big Bang.”
And now for something completely different…!!
The Cosmic Christ is a deep intellectual concept expressing something about the paradox of the spiritual and the physical. How do these mystical theological ideas become grounded in our everyday lives?
At the first nativity, spiritual beings (angels) and cosmic phenomena (the unusual star) interrupted the norms and reality of everyday life. The unthinkable was happening; God was taking shape as a child.
Sometimes our faith interrupts life and sometimes life interrupts our faith. Either can lead us to do strange things, which may interrupt the norm for ourselves and others.
Could interruptions (sometimes feeling like moments of collision) be where we glimpse the paradox of the incarnation; a mystical/physical reality unfolding before us…?
Interrupted by Sheep
It was a cold sunset that evening. A group of neighbours crowded together outside, by the corner shop. There was nothing unusual in that, except that these neighbours were all dressed up as nativity characters. There was a Roman soldier chatting to the Community Police Officer and several portly angels comparing how many layers they were wearing under their costume.
This was the annual Street Nativity on the Birmingham estate where I live in a community house. The house had been the dressing room for the performers and also a temporary grazing ground for the assorted menagerie of nativity animals. This year we had a donkey and some sheep. Yes, an actual donkey and actual sheep. On the streets of Birmingham.
Once Gabriel had told Mary the Good News and Joseph had told her the bad news (about needing to travel to Bethlehem), we set off in procession along the main road to our next scene, a grassy slope between blocks of maisonettes.
The sheep, Baz and Babs, were Ryeland sheep – almost square in shape, with very thick coats and quite muscular. Baz was stubborn and needed a lot of coaxing to move from one plot of grass to another. Babs, on the other hand, was like a rocket! As soon as she sensed greener grass ahead, she would shoot off dragging the poor shepherdess who was trying to control her along in her wake. I grabbed the lead as Babs and the shepherdess came hurtling past at speed to try and slow them down. And so it was that if you were driving along the Coleshill Road that December evening you would have seen a shepherdess and a king hurtling along with one sheep, ahead of Mary, Joseph and the donkey (busy leaving a ‘present’ outside the Health Centre), followed by several angels and another shepherd plodding along slowly with Baz.
A spot of historical context
One element of the nativity story that we sometimes miss, is that the interruption of angels into the world of the shepherds would have been truly terrifying. In the world of the shepherds, the appearance of heavenly beings like angels was associated with God and if anyone saw God they would expect to then die.
Another aspect that is sometimes missed, is that the shepherds were poor, uneducated people. They would certainly not expect to be able to go and see the King whose birth the angels announced to them. The extraordinary thing about this King, though, was that he would be wrapped in swaddling bands and lying in a manger in an ordinary home. Which was exactly how any children the shepherds had had themselves would have been looked after. So the circumstances of Jesus’ birth, involving a difficult journey, and Mary and Joseph needing hospitality from an ordinary local family, actually meant that Jesus became accessible even to poor shepherds. The ordinary setting for the birth would have made the visit of the Magi, on the other hand, with their very expensive gifts, all the more extraordinary. Such a household would never have people like that setting foot across the threshold.
Bible
Luke 2.8-15 is our reading for this week. As you read, you may wish to prayerfully consider the questions: What kind of interruptions would you be unsettled or confused by or even terrified of? What is your invitation in relation to this?
Lectio (read)
Read the passage slowly several times, with pauses in between. Notice which particular word, phrase or image sticks in your mind.
Meditatio (meditate)
In the silence, chew over the word, phrase or image that stuck in your mind. Ask God; “Why did this stick out to me? What are you drawing my attention to?” Stay with this question.
Oratio (responding / praying)
Pray with your word/phrase/image. Offer it back to God in some way. What is the deep longing within you or need in the world that this keys into? Be really true to yourself in how you pray (speak out loud or stay silent, write, draw or create something, use movement, listen to music – do whatever will help you to offer your prayer to God).
Contemplatio (contemplation)
Simply rest in the love of God. Trust that God, that Love, is present with you in this moment.
Body Prayer
Our Advent body prayers are for the whole created order. Consider doing this one outside if that is possible for you… You may want to adapt the prayer movement to touch a leaf, the soil, a tree trunk, or your pet (if they let you!!) as you say, “…in this flesh”.
“Let joy make a home in this flesh.”: (words by Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies [London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2024]; movement by Soobie). See the movement here and join in
Chant
We continue to en-chant our advent by singing this prayer: “I will wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him…in his word is my hope” (words from Psalm 130) (Click the words to hear the chant and join in.)
Over to you…
If you create anything in response to this Advent journey, we would love for you to share it more widely. One of the easiest ways of sharing it is to post a picture / your thoughts in our public Facebook group. Just go on Facebook and search for “Contemplative Fire”. Or you can email anything to me on alidorey1@gmail.com if you are happy for us to share your offering more widely, perhaps on here or within our community.
Compiled by CF Companions Soobie Whitfield and Revd Ali Dorey
Week Two: Embodied journeys…
Mary and Joseph were obliged to travel over 90 miles (146km) from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea, the village of Joseph’s antecedents, to register for the Roman census. This would probably have taken them 3-4 days on foot. The journey would have taken in the mountainous territory of Judea, which was where Mary had previously gone to visit her relative Elizabeth. Maybe they stayed with Elizabeth and Zachariah en route? On this trip, however, Mary would have been much further on in her pregnancy, which is probably one reason for the strong traditional notion that she rode on a donkey. (Although there is no biblical evidence for this.)
At the time of the census, many people would have been on the move, having to return to their ancestral towns and villages to register. Mary and Joseph would have probably travelled alongside others making a similar journeys. As we reflected on the practicalities of their journey, we realised they probably were unable to carry all the food they would need with them. We wondered whether the people they journeyed alongside might have shared food and other kinds of sustenance to enable their journey.
Some plants along the way would have had medicinal uses. There is an old legend that Joseph collected “Lady’s bedstraw” (a kind of thyme which grows in Palestine) along the way, for Mary to lie on as she gave birth (one possible reason for the plant’s colloquial name).
The fragrance of this plant deters fleas, so it has been used traditionally to stuff mattresses. There is a grim, embodied, very practical reality of the grime of living in instability with no fixed “home”, or having to make a long journey with limited resources, particularly if you are pregnant! But it is likely that other creatures along the way would have offered sustenance of various kinds to Mary and Joseph (foraged edible plants, animals hunted and then cooked and shared with other travellers along the way).
Mary and Joseph would have had a strong sense of home attached to particular geographical places, and the fact that Joseph was descended from the royal family of David would have meant, in the culture of the Middle East at the time, that they would have been welcomed into any household in Bethlehem when they arrived. But they still had to journey over two or three nights in order to get there. In our conversations with people who are migrants from their homeland, we have heard that “home” is more a physical feeling carried within than a geographical location. It is in our bodies more than being locatable on a map. This becomes even more important for people who are forced to leave the places where they were from.
Sometimes the embodied sense of home is strengthened when people find they can carry a taste or smell of home with them; particular food, a piece of music they can sing or play, or something which has a smell or touch that they associate strongly with their home. An Ethiopian refugee, as she was making injera, the national dish, once told me, “When I lived in Ethiopia I hated injera, but now I’m here, it’s all I want to eat.” There is power in taking something into yourself by eating it; carrying it in your body.
Wherever we are, whatever the circumstances of our home, we wonder whether part of joy making home within our flesh is the taste of home. At some point during this week, we invite you to find a food or another thing that reminds you of home and to share it with someone. In the Christian tradition all of this links strongly to the Eucharist – our sharing of bread and wine to remember Jesus’ whole life and death and resurrection; the story which is our ultimate, shared “home”.
In the icon below, entitled Our Lady of the Journey, Kelly Latimore sees echoes of the holy family in those fleeing from war and strife, who are perhaps similarly reliant on the others they meet for sustenance along the way:
A prayer by Cole Arthur Riley, from Black Liturgies (London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2024, p.230):
“Silent God, there are seasons when your silence feels like a cruel act of abandonment. We mistakenly equate nearness with noise. Show us a different kind of divine intimacy. A silence born not of neglect, but of safety and rest. In a world that weaponises silence against the vulnerable, it is difficult to believe in its virtue. This Advent, allow us to ask the question of whose voice is being centred and whose is missing. Let those whose voices historically have taken up far too much space fall quiet in this season, in a silence of solidarity. Grant the marginalised the agency to choose their silences – not a forced silencing but a sacred rest and defiance in a world whose noise does not relent. If we’re silent, let it be the quiet of Mary who kept her story close, allowing a small but sacred number to bear witness to her cosmic unfolding. If we’re silent, let it be the silence of the womb, a warmth we can finally rest in. Amen
INHALE: The world grows loud
EXHALE: I can rest in this silence
INHALE: I can pause and listen
EXHALE: Silence is a portal…”
Bible
Luke 2.1-5 is our reading for this week. As you read, you may wish to prayerfully consider the questions: Who holds power over your body, my body, the bodies of displaced people? And/or What is the place of resistance as we walk with God?
Lectio (read)
Read the passage slowly several times, with pauses in between. Notice which particular word, phrase or image sticks in your mind.
Meditatio (meditate)
In the silence, chew over the word, phrase or image that stuck in your mind. Ask God; “Why did this stick out to me? What are you drawing my attention to?” Stay with this question.
Oratio (responding / praying)
Pray with your word/phrase/image. Offer it back to God in some way. What is the deep longing within you or need in the world that this keys into? Be really true to yourself in how you pray (speak out loud or stay silent, write, draw or create something, use movement, listen to music – do whatever will help you to offer your prayer to God).
Contemplatio (contemplation)
Simply rest in the love of God. Trust that God, that Love, is present with you in this moment.
Poem-prayer
“…Let the bellies of Iraqi women,
groaning for their war-despoiled country,
be clothed with garments of hope.
Let their mourning be exchanged for dancing….”
(from Magnificat by Nicola Slee quoted fully in our reflections last week)
You may wish to adapt or rewrite Nicola Slee’s words above to make your own prayer for particular places where women and others are displaced currently.
Body Prayer
Body prayer – God of this night. We embody a prayer for protection for those journeying, and for our own deepening journeys this Advent (words by Steven Shakespeare, from The Earth Cries Glory[Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2019] movement by Soobie):
Click here to see the movements and join in:
“God of this night
Protect us, surround us, watch over us
God of this night
Renew us, deepen us, dream us
God of this night
Wait with us for the coming dawn”
Chant
We continue to en-chant our advent by singing this prayer: “I will wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him…in his word is my hope” (words from Psalm 130). Click here to hear the chant and join in.
Over to you…
If you create anything in response to this Advent journey, we would love for you to share it more widely. One of the easiest ways of sharing it is to post a picture / your thoughts in our public Facebook group. Just go on Facebook and search for “Contemplative Fire”. Or you can email anything to me on alidorey1@gmail.com if you are happy for us to share your offering more widely, perhaps on here or within our community.
Compiled by CF Companions Soobie Whitfield and Revd Ali Dorey
Week One: Mary – embodying the Creator
In this Advent season, we remember that Jesus is arriving not only among his creation, but actually within Mary’s body – the body of one of his creatures! Jesus is carried within Mary throughout Advent. In fact, as we begin this month-long waiting, she has been carrying him for eight months already. In the last month of pregnancy what is happening? All major developments have already taken place in the baby. The last month is about the baby becoming bigger and stronger; able to survive outside his mother’s body (although he will remain dependent on her for some time). How on earth could the Creator of the universe be taking form within the body of a human woman? Within her body she holds the whole cosmos and, in fact, its Creator, as in Kelly Latimore’s icon, Mary: Love forever being born.
Infant mortality was prevalent at the time of Mary’s pregnancy. And yet, early on in her pregnancy, when Mary visited Elizabeth, she prayed the Magnificat. These were words of great faith, given that her baby’s survival and her own survival of childbirth were not at all certain, and that at the time the whole land was under the occupation of the Romans. As a young Jewish woman in this environment, probably in her mid-teens, she would have experienced joy at the great honour of this (particularly following the visit of the Angel Gabriel to her to tell her of her extraordinary pregnancy Luke 1.26-38), and at Joseph standing by her, but she would surely also have been afraid of all of the unknowns.
Body Prayer
How can the Creator be taking shape in the womb of one of his creatures? And yet here his is; a foetus. We embody Mary’s joy and faith as prayer, that we might somehow become bearers of the Creator within our own bodies, following the pattern of Mary. “Let joy make a home in this flesh.”: (words by Cole Arthur Riley, Black Liturgies[London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 2024]; movement by Soobie). See the movement here and join in
Magnificat
Let the bellies of all women everywhere magnify God.
Let the bellies of thin women,
shrinking in upon themselves,
leap at the promise of food.
Let the bellies of fat women,
enormously round,
jiggle their huge flesh with pride.
Let the bellies of barren women be comforted
by the caress of other women’s hands.
Let the bellies of women exhausted from too much bearing
rest from their labours.
Let their children leave them in peace.
Let the bellies of old women
not be ashamed of their wrinkles and stretch marks:
they are the scars of life.
Let the scar-marked bellies of the women who have been under the knife
be honoured and revered:
let their abortions and cancers and hysterectomies be named as the griefs of God.
Let the bellies of Iraqi women,
groaning for their war-despoiled country,
be clothed with garments of hope.
Let their mourning be exchanged for dancing.
Let the bellies of children in Darfur, distorted and extended,
be strengthened and mended.
Let them hear tidings of bread,
a festival of peace.
Let the bellies of the grandmothers in Kashmir,
keening for their dead,
be lifted on the shoulders of those who can carry them.
Let many strangers’ hands support them.
Let the bellies of women working alongside the men all along the coasts of Sri Lanka
be strong to build what must be rebuilt.
Let the bellies of all women offer their burdens.
Let us carry them together,
wrapped in swaddling clothes.
Let us bear them in our arms to the altar of God.
Let Mary and Elizabeth go with us,
blessing the fruit of our bellies,
swelling our tears and our praises.
Let not one woman be barred
from sharing our song.
Let unborn babies,
the infants in arms,
the toddlers,
the children and awkward adolescents
join with the young women,
the middle-aged,
the old women, the crones and the dying.
Let us come in our wheelchairs and walking,
single-breasted and flat-chested,
wombless and wombful,
wounded and recovering,
bodies beautiful and broken,
knowing ourselves unwhole and hurting,
hopeful and despairing.
Let us carry each other.
Let us support the ones who won’t make it on their own.
Let us lean on each other’s strength.
And let all the bellies of all women everywhere magnify God
for the great and awesome deeds She is doing in our midst.
by Nicola Slee (The Book of Mary London: SPCK, 2007)
Bible
Luke 1.46-55 is known as the Magnificat (literally “magnifies” as Mary “magnifies” God in the first line); Mary’s song-prayer, which she uttered in the early stages of her pregnancy. We invite you to read this meditatively, perhaps using the Lectio Divina process outlined below. As you read, you may wish to prayerfully consider the questions: Has God brought down the powerful from their thrones? Has God filled the hungry with good things? How could Mary, who would face struggle, find this maverick hope and faith in the face of her difficult reality?
Lectio (read)
Read the passage slowly several times, with pauses in between. Notice which particular word, phrase or image sticks in your mind.
Meditatio (meditate)
In the silence, chew over the word, phrase or image that stuck in your mind. Ask God; “Why did this stick out to me? What are you drawing my attention to?” Stay with this question.
Oratio (prayer)
Pray with your word/phrase/image. Offer it back to God in some way. What is the deep longing within you or need in the world that this keys into? Be really true to yourself in how you pray (speak out loud or stay silent, write, draw or create something, use movement, listen to music – do whatever will help you to offer your prayer to God).
Contemplatio (contemplation)
Simply rest in the love of God. Trust that God, that Love, is present with you in this moment.
Chant
There is a kind of enchantment happening on this journey. As we consider Mary, pregnant and waiting, we en-chant our advent by singing this prayer: “I will wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him…in his word is my hope” (words from Psalm 130) (Click the words to hear the chant and join in.)
Compiled by CF Companions Soobie Whitfield and Revd Ali Dorey