Advent and the prayer of faith

Last Saturday afternoon I picked greenery, rosemary and lavender, and assembled my Advent wreath. Then, as dusk enveloped us in early winter darkness, I lit the first candle, sat in silence and welcomed in Advent. Last weekend I also wrote a tribute to my former spiritual director, who had recently died. I recalled how she had helped me grow into what she called the prayer of faith; a wordless, imageless encounter with God, which is also the way of unknowing and inner poverty. 

And as I wrote and as I prayed I was aware of parallels between Advent - this holy season of waiting - and a prayer in which one can only wait. But I could also feel two elements seeping into each other, meeting and mingling: the journey of the prayer of faith, and the significance we attach to each Advent candle.

Hope is the candle which remains lit throughout Advent; that first flame, piercing the darkness, which symbolises Advent's beginning, and continues, steadily, until Christmas. And hope is the flame which quickens within us, making us long for and look forward to prayer, even when our experience is of bare, barren-seeming dryness.

Faith is the next candle, adding some more light. And faith, as I wrote last week, is what sustains us in our prayer, because, in a darkness and emptiness devoid of experiences and feelings, it is faith alone which assures the pray-er of God's presence and action. If it is hope which entices us, then faith holds us, and makes us return again and again: faith in a God who loves us and longs for us, and comes to meet us in our own deepest longing and need. 

The Gaudete candle is our joy. We have passed the midpoint in Advent; Christmas is maybe only ten or twelve days away. Here in the northern hemisphere we are approaching the time of longest, darkest darkness, and yet this light is gradually increasing. We can rejoice, because the Lord is very near. And in our prayer, as in our life, the Lord is always very near. Seen or unseen, felt or not, faith keeps us sure of his presence; and in all prayer's challenges and darkness, Jesus is nonetheless the very core of our existence, and the source of the deep, though quiet, joy which acts as a permeating leaven. And we can rejoice, too, aware of God's immense joy and delight in us, and overwhelming desire for us.  

And in all this there is peace, born of surrender and acceptance, bringing calm and contentment. And peace is the fourth candle: lit around the quietly subtle turning point of midwinter, and the darkest, longest night, after which light will, oh-so gradually, be in the ascendant. 

At the heart of our Advent wreaths there is a candle symbolising Christ, the One for whom we long, and wait. It is there throughout Advent, but remains unlit until the moment Christ is born, in and among us. And in the fidelity of our waiting and our longing, our faith-filled darkness and our quiet joy, Love becomes - Love is - incarnate; wondrously, transformatively, amazingly and enrichingly so.