In December around here, you can’t forget Advent for very long. Our Advent songs, for one thing, are both numerous and beautiful—I just counted 17 different ones—and we sang them over and over every day at Mass and at community prayer. Homilies obviously often centered on some aspect of Advent, and our daily spiritual reading this year (and almost every year) was that most beautiful, simple, and profound of Advent books, The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander.

At St. Mary’s, figures of Mary, Joseph, and the donkey (made of board wood) “traveled across the land” between the house and the river and were moved closer to the house each day.

On the way to prayers and Mass every day, just outside the island chapel, we put a piece (or more) of straw in the manger awaiting the Christ Child. And in the dining room, just before supper every evening, the candles of the Advent wreath were lit, and we sang songs which express longing for the coming of Christ. Every unscheduled evening, whoever wished to was in the kitchen baking Christmas cookies.

The guests in their liturgy class learned about Advent and about the feasts within Advent and were responsible for the presentations for the feasts. They did a skit for St. Nicholas Day—about Santa Claus having an identity crisis! St. Nicholas, in counseling him to tell people about his true identity and origins, told his story to him—and to us.

Also on St. Nicholas Day we ate gingerbread cookies made in the shape of St. Nicholas and were each given, as a gift from St. Nicholas, the name of someone currently at MH to pray for throughout the coming year.

For the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, because of the bigger than usual celebration of the anniversary of Catherine’s death (which occurs two days later), it was decided to eliminate our usual Guadalupe party.

But we began the day with a procession to the chapel where we sang Mananitas (morning songs) to Our Lady of Guadalupe in several different languages, and lay artificial roses before her image.

That image, a large one, was also in the dining room as we came in for breakfast, and there we each lit a candle to her and picked a “word” from a basket—a line from Our Lady’s message to Juan Diego. At the evening Mass all the songs were in Spanish, and afterwards we had a Mexican supper, as we always do on that day. And the guests dramatized for us the story of Our Lady’s appearance to Juan Diego.

Advent is, of course, a very busy time, and in order to help us not get so absorbed in the busyness that we forget the reason for it all, we do take some time set apart. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception we had both a feast—a beautiful Mass and festive supper—and a day of recollection.

Then there was the anniversary of Catherine’s death on December 14th. On the preceding Sunday evening, there was a beautiful, graced presentation—a slide show of readings of twenty of Catherine’s memories with accompanying illustrations and music. (We tell you more about this event in the article, “A Dream,” on p. 8 of this paper.) The evening before the 14th, we had a Byzantine Memorial Service. The day itself was a day off, which included a beautiful Mass and festive supper.

During the Mass, Eliana Ribeiro das Chagas, newly arrived in Combermere from her native Brazil, renewed her Madonna House promises—a symbol of the continuation of the community that Catherine founded.

And what I’ve said is only part of what we did to live Advent! We also have, obviously, non-Advent news items.

Kim Shepherd, a geriatric consultant, gave a talk on Alzheimer’s for whoever wished to attend. And Dr. Joan Johnston, who has visited us several times as a working guest and who is a friend of Marian Centre Edmonton, gave a talk as part of our Winter Lecture Series: “Eating Disorders as Addiction.” She also gave a follow-up morning session. Her presentations included the story of her own struggles and transformation in this area and general information about the path to healing and health through the Twelve Step Program.

Also MH Publications has redesigned and expanded the Madonna House website at http://www.madonnahouse.org/

And then, of course, after Advent came Christmas. Much could be said about it, but suffice it to say that it was, as always, an outpouring of celebrating the birth of Christ in every way possible—song, decoration, food, games, relaxing with one another, etc., etc. etc.

One delightful detail of Christmas this year is that the staff at St. Mary’s made a pesebre, that is, a nativity scene of the kind made in Columbia, South America, one that includes the village life around it, according to the imagination of the makers. The idea for making it here, as well as much of the work on it, came from Hugo Isaza, a staff worker from Colombia.

People worked on it during Advent evenings and, using every sort of material available, made houses, trees, a bridge, a church, a fountain (with running water!), a market, and more. And of course, there were figurines, both from donations and made specially for the pesebre, of people and animals. The details were many and delightful, and every time you looked at it, you saw something new.

There is a poem by Hilaire Belloc, a prominent poet, essayist, and historian of the early 20th century:

Where’er the Catholic sun doth shine,
There’s song and laughter and good red wine,
At least I’ve ever found it so.
Benedicamus Domino.

It is no accident that wherever God is truly at the center, whether it is of a community, a parish, a family, a school, or even a whole culture—side by side with the cross—love and laughter and music and creativity abound. For God is goodness and beauty and love.

The Culture of Life that Pope John Paul II talked about is not only about safeguarding physical life. It is also about fostering that life, about fostering everything that is good and true and beautiful.