New Music for Advent & Christmas

Dark and dreary is the Michigan December. Snow (which we haven't had much of this year), ice, fog and short days lead to seasonal affective disorder. Yet on the darkest days of the year we celebrate the coming of Christ, the light of the world. 

I just finished recording the final songs for my EP "Kresh" and it is available as a download from Noisetrade. This project is my meditation during the Advent season--a time of reflection and repentance wrapped in joyful expectation. 

Savior of the Nations Come is based on "Veni Redemptor gentium" by St. Ambrose of Milan. The heresiarch Martin Luther translated it into German. An American, William M. Reynolds, later translated it into English in 1851. The tune is "Nun Komm" by Johanne Walther. When I heard it sung at Mass one year I imagined it as a garage band song.

My Soul in Stillness is based on the "O Antiphons" of Advent. I'm not usually a fan of Marty Haugen songs (let's just leave it at that), but this one is a winner. I decided to do it as a chillout techno song to fit the expectant mood of the season. 

Puer Natus is an Introit for Christ-Mass, the Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I sang the 1876 translation by Hamilton Montgomerie MacGill to a Norwegian tune I heard on an album by Bukkene Bruse. 

Shepherd Song is my own translation of the Czech carol “Pásli Ovce Valaši”. I play dulcimer on this one.

Gaudete! dates back to at least the 16th century. Steeley Span's recording of it in 1973 made the British top 20, but my favorite version is by the Mediaeval Baebes. For my recording I gave it a techno spacey vibe.

Glory, Glory comes from a poem by Christina Rossetti who is better known for her popular "In the Bleak Midwinter". When I read the first line it sounded like a blues tune, so that's what I did to it.

Chill December is a strange hymn written by Norval Clyne from Scotland. I love the imagery and the key shift from minor to major in the tune. Did this one techno with all kinds of phase shifting to create a wind effect.

Technical: I used Audacity for recording and mixing and MuLab for sequencing "My Soul in Stillness" and "Chill December".

      

The Four Advents

Catholic tradition says that there are four comings of Christ. All of them are mentioned in the Advent Liturgy. The first is His coming in the flesh. The last is when He comes again in glory. But between them are two more: Christ comes into our hearts, and Christ comes for us at our death. The purpose of this season is to prepare us for all of these "advents".

In hora mortis meae voca me.
Et iube me venire ad te,
Ut cum Sanctis tuis laudem te
in saecula saeculorum.

Fourth Sunday of Advent

We beseech Thee, Almighty God, to purify our consciences by Thy daily visitation, that when Thy Son our Lord cometh He may find in us a mansion prepared for Himself; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Our Lady of Expectation

“O God who wished that your Word would take the flesh from the womb of the Virgin as announced by the Angel and whom we confess to be the true Mother of God, may we be helped by her intercession.”

Today, in many parts of the world (but sadly not in America), it is the feast of Our Lady of Expectation. One week before Christ-Mass we celebrate the Holy Virgin "great with child".

The feast is kept alive in many countries like Spain, Portugal, Italy and Poland as well as in a few religious orders. In older editions of missals, this feast is still listed as a votive Mass. There are special prayers and novenas to “Our Lady of Expectation” available for women who cannot conceive or bear a child.

The origin of this feast goes back to the bishops of the 10th Council of Toledo, in 656. They felt that the joy of the Annunciation was overshadowed by the somber character of Lent, so they moved the feast to the week before Nativity. Later, they re-joined the rest of the Church in celebrating the Annunciation on March 25th. But they kept this day as a way to celebrate the Virgin with child .

Third Sunday of Advent

Stir up Thy power, O Lord, and with great might come among us; and, because we are sorely hindered by our sins, let Thy bountiful grace and mercy speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be honor and glory, world without end. Amen.

Nightingale Sounds

One of my favorite Christmas songs is the 16th century "villancico" from Spain called "Riu Riu Chiu". Several recordings have been made including a version by the Monkees doing the first two verses (see video below). I post this today because the song mentions today's feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Here's my own moderately literal translation:

Riu, riu chiu protected by the River
God kept our Lady from that wolf the devil
God kept our Lady from that wolf the devil

The rabid wolf attempted to bite the Theotokos
But Almighty God knew how to defend her
He wished to create her impervious to sin
Nor did she embody original sin

This newborn child is the mightiest of monarchs
Christ patriarchal dressed in human flesh
He humbled Himself in order to redeem us
He who was infinite took on finitude

Many prophecies told us about His coming
And now in our days we have seen them fulfilled
God became man on earth do we behold Him
Now man goes to heaven because it is His will

Christ is here giving life to the dead
He comes to redeem the fallen race of Adam
Jesus is the light that shines in the day
He is the Lamb of God John the Baptist prophesied

Now we have received what we were all desiring
Let us go together bearing our gifts
Let us give our wills to the God who was willing
to come down to earth becoming one of us.

Second Sunday of Advent

Merciful God, who didst send Thy messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

St. John of Damascus: Theotokos

Moreover we proclaim the holy Virgin to be in strict truth the Mother of God. For inasmuch as He who was born of her was true God, she who bare the true God incarnate is the true mother of God.

For we hold that God was born of her, not implying that the divinity of the Word received from her the beginning of its being, but meaning that God the Word Himself, Who was begotten of the Father timelessly before the ages, and was with the Father and the Spirit without beginning and through eternity, took up His abode in these last days for the sake of our salvation in the Virgin’s womb, and was without change made flesh and born of her.

For the holy Virgin did not bare mere man but true God: and not mere God but God incarnate, Who did not bring down His body from Heaven, nor simply passed through the Virgin as channel, but received from her flesh of like essence to our own and subsisting in Himself. For if the body had come down from heaven and had not partaken of our nature, what would have been the use of His becoming man? For the purpose of God the Word becoming man was that the very same nature, which had sinned and fallen and become corrupted, should triumph over the deceiving tyrant and so be freed from corruption, just as the divine apostle puts it, For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead (1 Cor. 15:21). If the first is true the second must also be true.

Hence it is with justice and truth that we call the holy Mary the Mother of God. For this name embraces the whole mystery of the dispensation. For if she who bore Him is the Mother of God, assuredly He Who was born of her is God and likewise also man.

~St. John of Damascus (645-749) whose feast is celebrated today

(from "An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith" 3:12)

The Icon of Advent

The Virgin Mary

is the icon of Advent.

Let us call upon her

to help us to become

an extension of humanity

for the Lord who comes.

~Pope Benedict XVI

Advent Begins!

Prepare ye the way of the Lord,

make straight in the desert a

highway for our God.
(Isaiah 40:3)

Collect for the First Sunday of Advent

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

"Be watchful! Be alert! You do not know when the time will come."
(Mark 13:33)