great expectations

When I was a novice music director planning the first Christmas liturgies of my service, I selected Marty Haugen's ebullient "Awake, Awake, and Greet the New Morn" as the opening song of the Christmas Day liturgy.*

"Awake, awake, and greet the new morn,

For angels herald its dawning,

Sing out your joy, for now he is born,

Behold! the Child of our longing.

Come as a baby weak and poor,

To bring all hearts together,

He opens wide the heav'n-ly door

And lives now inside us for ever."

Festive, yes, and fitting, sure -- but not "O Come, All Ye Faithful" or "Joy to the World" or some other such bulwark of the Christmas carol repertoire as some might have been expecting.  I was known for introducing a lot of new music to the parish, and Christmas was no exception.

Each of us has our own set of expectations when it comes to such things as major holidays like Christmas.  They are built on tradition, the memories of our childhood, the hopes we have for how we'd like to celebrate in the future, and (at least) what we think the people we plan to celebrate with expect of the holidays.  But what happens when it all turns out differently?

The final two weeks of Advent passed in a blur for our family.  Our lad who seemed so fragile was for good reason.  He was diagnosed with pneumonia, then a week later turned up with an allergic reaction to the antibiotic prescribed to treat the pneumonia.  Before that latter revelation, we were contending with breathing treatments and medicine and such.  This left little time or energy left for fully entering into the Christmas mystery -- at least, in the way I thought I should have.

With Christmas Eve came a blizzard -- an anomaly for our region of the country.  Its arrival meant no family coming over to spend Christmas Eve with us or us going to visit other family on Christmas Day as we had planned, treacherous travel conditions for those who did venture this way, and no outing to Mass -- the centerpiece of our entire Christmas celebration.

Now the weather conditions are improving, and family is on the way to celebrate with us.  May our tidings be festive, joyful, and grateful for the blessings of family, the restoration of good health for our young lad, and most of all for the gift of redemption that comes with the arrival of the Christ child.

Christ enters into our reality knowing full well what it is, and wanting to be a part of it.  Our desire to be still and listen and make every little detail perfect is itself a gift from God -- a stirring of our devotion and faith.  But he knows our particular circumstances -- chaotic and stressful and exhausting though they may be -- and embraces us and them.  Even when we can't come to him, he comes to us.

I don't remember if we got to this fourth verse of the carol that Christmas morning with the obscure music (there *were* other, more familiar selections that morning), but it certainly seems fitting this year:

"Rejoice, rejoice, take heart in the night,

Though dark the winter and cheerless,

The rising sun shall crown you with light,

Be strong and loving and fearless;

Love be our song and love our prayer,

And love, our endless story,

May God fill ev'ry day we share,

And bring us at last into glory."

*In our Catholic tradition, there are several Masses celebrating Christmas beginning on Christmas Eve, including the vigil Mass on Christmas Eve, Mass at Midnight, and Mass during the Day on Christmas Day.