Numbers have never been my strong suit. Somehow, I mess up even basic math and dates. Case in point? My plans for this last week of my mini-Advent retreat. When I planned this week out, I knew it would be a short one. But for reasons I cannot imagine, I thought Christmas Eve was Wednesday. It is not. It is Tuesday. And since I believe every last one of us should be off our phones as much as possible on that day, I can’t end my little series on Tuesday like I thought I could. I need to end it on Monday, tomorrow, instead. Which means for this fourth and final week, I have just one poem for you. And it is a doozy—gorgeous and powerful, but also as unsentimental as they come (and a little bit fearsome, too). I’ll be back tomorrow with a (brief) essay meditating on love and this particular poem, which is called “Micha-el,” (as in Saint Michael the Archangel, who is its narrator). It’s by the contemporary Catholic poet Jane Greer, and you can find it in her marvelous book of poetry Love Like a Conflagration.
Micha-el
By Jane Greer
You lull yourselves with dimple-handed cherubs
simpering in your étagère half-naked;
small-breasted maidens, tissue-winged and swooning
there on your desktop;
all those complacent fleshy pastel eunuchs
posing with harp or horn on the Christmas mantel:
you underestimate to your own peril
Whom we have come from,
Whom we are acting for, and it’s too late now:
suddenly it’s too late to ask for mercy.
Mercy is what you’ll get—His wide-armed mercy—
but you won’t like it.
He has been with you, at your elbow, lovesick,
down the millennia. He knows you deeply,
yet still encumbers your black hearts with blessings.
Willing unwillful
swain, He has wept and waited while you mocked Him.
Finally, now, the muscles of His jawline
clench and unclench beneath that holy shadow:
Enough is enough.
Don’t act as though some game’s been played unfairly:
He’s never skimped on prophets since He breathed you
out of the mud and on your way to Heaven—
yours for the asking—
but you were too intent on what you’d crawled from.
You can’t begin to dream what you’ve rejected,
what we would give to need His fierce salvation,
require His dying ….
Love like a conflagration shall be yours now;
love like an April river, like a temblor;
love like an avalanche, a midnight bomb-blast,
finding you hidden,
shrieking the air with shards of stained-glass windows;
love like a sunstorm, sweeping before it nations,
continents, galaxies, and all your hubris.
Yes, say your prayers now.
This is your Precious Moment, I its angel,
angry and dark and terrible. God With Us,
Emmanu-el, comes bearing yet more mercy,
but you won’t like it.
Again, that was Micha-el, by Jane Greer. I’ll be back tomorrow with an essay on love and why I chose this poem, of all poems, as our final one before Christmas.
Roundup: The Fourth Week of Advent
Prayers and Devotions
We have been loving doing the O Antiphons again this year, which conclude tomorrow night. So, that and our Advent Wreath devotions will continue for two more days. On Christmas Eve, in the morning, Chris will read the children the the Second Chapter of the Gospel of Luke. It would be lovely to do this before bedtime, but we’re having a crowd for dinner on Christmas Eve (after the 4 pm children’s Mass), and I know better than to plan anything for bedtime other than having the children put Baby Jesus in the manger of our various Nativity scenes.
Saints and Feasts
Christmas is obviously the big one this week, but the Church also celebrates the Feast of Saint Stephen on December 26 (Boxing Day), which my family will celebrate by going nowhere and doing nothing but reading, watching movies, playing with new toys, and eating leftovers. It sounds glorious. Also on the calendar for the week is the feast of Saint John the Evangelist on Friday and the Feast of the Holy Innocents and Martyrs on Saturday. At minimum, we’ll pop into a church that day with the kids to light a candle and say a prayer for the victims of abortion.
Decorating
The house is 95 percent decorated as of Friday night (when we decked the hall tree in ribbons and homemade garland), but on Christmas Eve morning, I’ll whip out the reserve cedar greens I have been keeping fresh outside in the cold and cover any stray surface I can with them—tables, bookshelves, paintings, etc. I’ll also tie a few more ribbons around sconces and light fixtures and any other object that tells me it wants to be a little more festive. I have never done this before (mostly because we are never in our house for Christmas), but have always dreamed of giving the house an extra dose of festivity on Christmas Eve, making it clear to my children that the feast has come at last, and now Christmas truly begins.
Beyond that, cleaning is the name of the game this week, as we have friends from Pittsburgh and the kids’ school joining us for Christmas Eve dinner. I’m keeping the food simple this year, with a charcuterie board and lots of dips and appetizers, plus beef tenderloin and ham for sandwiches. I’ll share a few recipes I’m using tomorrow.
Until then, have a blessed Sunday!
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