Sing, Part 2

Some of you responded to my invitation to share your favorite Advent hymns with our Reflection community (mine is O Come, O Come Emmanuel).  Here's what you offered:

O Holy Night (Two people named this hymn)
Deck the Halls
Silent Night
What Child is This

Now, the liturgical sticklers among us might protest that these are not Advent hymns.  They're Christmas carols!  We'll have twelve days beginning on Christmas Eve to sing these beloved songs.

Yet.  Yet.

As I considered your messages, I found myself being reminded that a little flexibility is a good thing for our spiritual lives; too much rigidity and we're bound to shut out the Holy Spirit, which so often reaches us by surprising us.  It's not the form (in this case particular words) that prepares us for the arrival of the Christ child, but the process (here the act of consciously picking music that helps us ready ourselves for the nativity) that will enable us to be fully present as we join the angels, shepherds, magi, the faithful, and the curious around the newborn infant.

So, sing.  Sing whatever it is that makes you ready to welcome Emmanuel into our world, into your heart.

Sing!

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