In the Bleak Midwinter

Sometimes there are too many things to blog about. Shall I review the St. Francis deSales Oratory Gaudete Gala which took place Saturday evening? The boys' school choir recital at a nursing home? The boys' induction into the St. Stephen's Guild last Sunday? All of these topics are most blog-worthy but, alas, I am occupied with preparations for Christmas, and blogging must take a back seat to these.

But we are in Advent! And certainly it is a time of anticipation and preparation, both externally in our card-sending, gift-wrapping, decorating and menu-planning, and, perhaps more importantly, interiorly in our prayerful meditation, reading and pondering of the events leading up to the Nativity of the Christ Child.

And so, I leave you with one of my favorite seasonal poems. A beautiful meditation in itself!

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In the Bleak Midwinter

By Christina Rossetti

In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away when He comes to reign.
In the bleak midwinter a stable place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ.
 
Enough for Him, whom cherubim, worship night and day,
Breastful of milk, and a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels fall before,
The ox and ass and camel which adore.

Angels and archangels may have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim thronged the air;
But His mother only, in her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the beloved with a kiss.

What can I give Him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man, I would do my part;
Yet what I can I give Him: give my heart.

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A blessed Advent one and all...His coming is nigh!