Tonight's prayer comes to us from Trappist monk and spiritual writer, Thomas Merton. This is his poem, Advent, entwining the season with the natural elements of the universe. Tonight's music is a soft instrumental piece, Winter Solitude by Ekaterina. My suggestion is that you listen to Winter Solitude while you're reading Merton's Advent. Approach the poem as you would a painting: take in the words, phrases and images like colors, shadings and textures... Let the beauty of the whole be the artist's gift to you...
Winter Solitude by Ekaterina
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Advent
Charm with your stainlessness
these winter nights, skies, and be perfect!
Fly, vivider in the fiery dark, you quiet meteors,
and disappear.
You moon, be slow to go down,
this is your full!
The four white roads make off in silence
towards the four parts of the starry universe.
Time falls like manna at the corners of the wintry earth.
We have become more humble than the rocks,
more wakeful than the patient hills.
Charm with your stainlessness
these nights in Advent, holy spheres,
while minds, as meek as beasts,
stay close at home in the sweet hay;
and intellects are quieter than the flocks that feed by starlight.
Oh pour your darkness and your brightness
while minds, as meek as beasts,
stay close at home in the sweet hay;
and intellects are quieter than the flocks that feed by starlight.
Oh pour your darkness and your brightness
over all our solemn valleys, you skies:
and travel like the gentle Virgin,
toward the planets' stately setting,
oh white full moon as quiet as Bethlehem!
- Thomas Merton
toward the planets' stately setting,
oh white full moon as quiet as Bethlehem!
- Thomas Merton
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