Category Archives: advent meditations

When Advent meets Christmas

Posted on December 24, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

For Mary, Gabriel has opened a portal, a wormhole, an anomaly through which our history, this moment in which the blessed Incarnation is begun, is fused with eternity. Continue reading →

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When the heavens open

Posted on December 22, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

And Jesus: little, embryonic, speck of Jesus; what does he see, from such a soft and secret place? What does he know, from such a small beginning? Continue reading →

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Wait

Posted on December 21, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

All is nearly ready. There is little more to be done; for some tasks it is too late, for others, already begun, the conveyor belt of Christmas, well-oiled and practiced has taken them off our hands and out of our control. Continue reading →

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Wordless

Posted on December 20, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

Wordless came the Word of God; not silent, as the night revolved around him snuffling, yawning, suckling, sighing, crying out the love of God, wordless, gazing into the eternity between one body and the next.

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God’s time

Posted on December 10, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

God’s relationship with our time-bound world is much more poetic and less literal than a counting down of days between the first and the second creation to come. Continue reading →

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Advent

Posted on December 6, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

Dangerous moments in a darkened womb; the unfamiliar arrhythmia of travel, the fresh, tart taste of fear filtered through amniotic fluid, lullaby of strange sirens steering the weary; sunk in your swaying sea, time contracts creation to a singularity still … Continue reading →

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Mangled time: a love story

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Rosalind C Hughes

Advent is not the most comforting season of the liturgical year. It itches with anticipation. It scratches at the walls like a prisoner counting out the days. It mangles time, mixing up what has been with what will be, preparing … Continue reading →

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Married to the miracle

Posted on December 18, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

A sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent in Year A. Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25 So this is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: his mother, Mary, engaged but not married, was found to be with child by the … Continue reading →

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Do not be afraid of the dark

Posted on December 14, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

An Advent devotion for the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio. Today is the commemoration of St John of the Cross; Juan de la Cruz Juan de la Cruz is best known to us for his luminous phrase, “the dark night of … Continue reading →

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Of prophets and (im)patience

Posted on December 11, 2016 by Rosalind C Hughes

A sermon for a snowy third Sunday of Advent in Euclid, Ohio. Isaiah 35:1-10, James 5:7-10, Matthew 11:2-11,  Canticle 15 (the Song of Mary) Isaiah the prophet wrote the better part of three thousand years ago, maybe in the eighth century BCE, “Here is your … Continue reading →

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