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O Antiphons: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!

The traditional Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” which many are familiar with, is a paraphrase of the lesser-known O Antiphons written by Benedictine monks in the Middle Ages. One of the oldest liturgical rituals in the Church, the O Antiphons have been sung since at least the 8th century. These short prayers, starting with O followed by a title given to the Messiah from Old Testament prophecies, are sung before the Magnificat during Evening Prayer from December 17–23, the last seven days before Christmas. Each antiphon describes God in terms of Old Testament traits and images.

Images and symbols that appear in dreams, art, literature, or scripture carry both personal and universal meaning. Serving as a bridge between the unconscious and the conscious, images can nourish our spirit. “Images open windows through which we can see realities formerly hidden from us. Images want to infuse themselves into us and to change us from the inside out, ” writes Anselm Grün.

Images are an essential part of rituals, prayer, self-reflection, and creativity. When practicing SoulCollage®, one of my favorite spiritual practices, images can guide us to a new level of awareness and reveal a deeper understanding of thought and feeling. Perhaps this is what attracts me to the tradition of praying the O Antiphons.


“Reflecting on the words and images prepares us to let Christ himself enter into us…We are all an image, an icon, of God. It is our task to become ever more like this unique image of God.”

Anselm Grün, A Time of Fulfillment: Spiritual Reflections for Advent and Christmas

The O Antiphons use images to help us envision the Christ we long for, and to draw us into a more profound connection to the God of history. “In the O-Antiphons the art of interpreting Old Testament text as images for the coming of Jesus Christ into the world becomes apparent.” (Anselm Grün) The repeated word “Come!” expresses our deepest longing for Christ. When we accept that we are not God, we yearn for fulfillment, for all that a Messiah can bring, not just in the hereafter but in the here and now. We long for wisdom, freedom, hope, peace, belonging, light, healing, salvation, dignity, protection, love, and accompaniment. Each of these longings is addressed in the O Antiphons.

For an extensive examination of our longings and the use of images in praying the O Antiphons, I highly recommend A Time of Fulfillment by Anselm Grün, a Benedictine monk from Münsterschwarzach Abbey, the motherhouse of the monastery of which I am an oblate.

Feel free to download and share any of the images in this reflection, or follow Being Benedictine on Facebook to share daily posts. Join the monks of St. John’s Abbey for each of the O Antiphons as Benedictine monks have done for 1300 years.

St. John’s Abbey sings O Antiphons: Holy Wisdom—

December 17th – O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
December 18th – O Adonai (O Lord)
Continue reading “O Antiphons: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!” →
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Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Sacred Mother

Mary, the quintessential mother, emerges in many of my collage creations. On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, December 12, I am reminded how Mother Mary appears in many forms across religions and cultures. She brings visions and messages uniquely tailored to those who receive them, like Juan Diego.

On the site of an ancient shrine to the Aztec mother goddess, on Tepeyac Hill near Mexico City, a young Nahuatl Indian named Juan Diego had a vision of a young Indian woman. Speaking in his native tongue, she directed him to take roses to the bishop and tell him to build a church on the hill. The bishop dismissed the story, but the young maiden appeared to Diego once more, identifying herself as the Mother of God. She instructed him to gather roses that grew at her feet, during the winter no less, and take them to the bishop. When Diego opened his coat, roses tumbled out and a colorful impression of Our Lady, with dark skin, was imprinted on the fabric.

“My dearest son, I am the eternal Virgin Mary, Mother of the true God, Author of Life, Creator of all and Lord of the Heavens and of the Earth.”

Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego on Mount Tepayac, 1531

This story has been told for five hundred years, standing as an “image of divine compassion for a demoralized people. Speaking to Juan Diego in his own language, (Mary) presented herself in terms of compassion and solidarity, not power and domination.” (Blessed Among Us, December 12, 2020) The image of Our Lady attracts millions of pilgrims each year at the basilica in Mexico City, one of the world’s most visited sacred sites.

One of the Mary cards I created during a Full Moon retreat with anam caras, women friends on the spiritual journey, features Our Lady of Guadalupe and her role in the life of all women, particularly those who are marginalized and suffering. In the upper left corner is an image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, framed by roses that bloomed out of season.  Our Lady watches over us—Mother of the Universe, outside time and space. Whether you call her Tonantzin, “Sacred Mother” in Nahuatl, the language of Juan Diego, or Holy Mother, Mother Mary, the Mother of God, or the Virgin Mary, she offers a divine motherly love and protection available to all. Mary empowers women to give that same love and compassion to others.

Continue reading “Our Lady of Guadalupe, Our Sacred Mother” →
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The Longest Night

The winter solstice is the precise moment when the sun is situated exactly over the Tropic of Capricorn, seemingly at a standstill. The word solstice is derived from the Latin word sol, meaning sun, and sisterre, meaning standstill. We know that time does not really stand still, but time is a marker, an occasion of turning from and turning towards. This moment cannot be contained, sustained, or paused. Time is motion; it marches on.

There are moments in our lives when our great darkness feels interminable, infinite, beyond, and outside of time. “In the interior wintertime, we can easily lose heart, stop believing in our goodness, forget about our resilience, and discount the presence of those who love us. There is often sadness, loneliness, and a depletion of joy. This is the season of grief and depression, of searching and struggle.” (The Circle of Life: The Hearts Journey Through the Seasons, Joyce Rupp & Macrina Wiederkehr) It can be reassuring that just as the astronomical start to winter begins, the solstice gives way to longer days and the darkness will yield to a promised light. So we hope with us.

Continue reading “The Longest Night” →
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Homecoming: A SoulFully You Retreat

We long for the acceptance of home, a place of peace where we can be truly ourselves–seen and heard, loved and believed, held and yet free. Our longing is the existential homesickness that THIS isn’t all there is and that when we get a taste of unconditional acceptance and love, we want more. Our longings are good and holy—it is our Divine inheritance to experience all that it means to feel at home.

Inspired by the lyrics of Homesick, a song by friend Jana West, my annual Advent retreat was titled Homecoming: A SoulFully You Retreat. We explored how the Divine accompanies us, making a home within, and what it means to feel homesick or “at home” with ourselves and others. I offer some of our reflections so you, too, can take part:

“Love is home. Home is both an external dwelling and an internal abode. Home is the place where we belong, our place of acceptance and welcome. There, in this shame and judgment-free embryonic cocoon of love, we practice unconditional acceptance; we learn to relate to ourselves and the world around us.

And home is a soft place for the body to land, a safe place for the soul to fully disrobe. Home is the place where our failures don’t kill, our sins can’t crush, and even when we are at our worst, we’re safe. Home is a place where we are free to take our deepest, fullest, least encumbered breath.

At home, there’s no need to guess whether we’re in or out, welcomed or not. Home always prepares a place with us in mind.” (Center for Action and Contemplation, Home, 5/10/2024, Felicia Murrel)


What words or phrases resonate with you? Indeed, our personal experiences of home can bring a spectrum of feelings, from warm and fuzzy to sadness or terror, when we consider what being “at home” means. The ideal is what we seek and long for, both within ourselves and with others.

Continue reading “Homecoming: A SoulFully You Retreat” →
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Tender Compassion of Our God

December 2020 Lectio Divina and Oblate Reflections

Sources: Luke 1:67-79; The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter 72 Study Guide for The Rule of St. Benedict, Maria-Thomas Beil, OSB, page 180-185

For our Lectio Divina practice, we read more deeply the well-known Benedictus that is prayed every morning in the Divine Office, Luke 1:67-79.

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Words and phrases that resonate with us, shared in our discussion:

Save us from our enemies….to show mercy….to set us free… without fear…. knowledge of salvation….forgiveness of our sins….the way of peace…promise….prepare his way…you, my child…tender compassion.

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The Benedictus proclaims what God is doing and will do for us—not what we do. Many of us have grown up with the image of an angry God, but that is not the God we are shown in Scripture. We are promised a God of tender compassion, not a bookkeeper of judgments. Mercy is God’s loving response to suffering. God is not watching from afar; God is suffering with us.

The dawn from on high breaks upon us—God is breaking in with the incarnation and gives us hope. Benedict was not harsh, but practical, just as God is tender. God enters our history to experience our suffering with us, but we must expose our wounds for the tender compassion of our God to work. To prepare our heart, we must invite God in. Advent was a time to prepare our hearts for God to enter—although this task is never fully completed. We must live in perpetual Advent, inviting God in and humbling ourselves without fear, to receive the tender compassion of our loving God.

Continue reading “Tender Compassion of Our God” →
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The Light Shines in the Darkness

We are still in the Christmas season.

During Advent, we wait in darkness for the light of Christmas Day. We circle around the Advent wreath, igniting another candle each week.

Advent is about longing for the God that breaks into time and space as a baby in a manger. Advent is about cultivating patience and not rushing to the Incarnation. Advent is the ultimate “vorfreude”, anticipating the joy of God becoming one of us, that God in his humanity has shared with us his divinity.

“God became human so that his divine life might flow into us and free us from our mortality and impermanence…to fulfill the deepest longings for transformation and the healing of lives.”

Anselm Grün, A Time of Fulfillment

The Advent wreath symbolizes the coming of the birth of Jesus, the light of Christmas drawing near and the anticipation of the Christ-light breaking into our life and world. With each passing week, the candle represents our hope that light will dispel the darkness.

So it is with us. We circle around the same issues, questions, and problems in our lives, struggling with the dark and light within us and around us. And we pray that God breaks in, that the light will prevail.

Light and Darkness: our life is filled with both. WE are filled with both.

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Spending time creating collages during the Christmas season is prayer for me. Consider some creative possibilities with Sanctuary, an free online retreat.

 “When we come to understand that everything in our world, including its darker aspects, derives from God, we begin to realize that much of what we perceive as “bad” is, from the divine perspective, simply another piece of the sacred whole…that which appears as darkness to us may very well be the beacon to our redemption.”

Niles Elliot Goldstein, God at the Edge

The beauty of the Advent season is recognizing and honoring this darkness in ourselves, in others and in the world.  This darkness that we prefer to deny, flee from or quickly fix is actually the beginning of something new and hopeful happening in ourselves.  The darkness can bring a great light.  “We see the darkness and we forget even darkness is light to God.” (Deidra Riggs, Every Little Thing)

journey through darkness into light
“The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” (Isaiah 9:2)
A collage creation during Christmas season.

The expectant and hopeful waiting in Advent when Jesus is in the womb, where possibility of new birth is upon us in the waiting and tender honing of our patience, is where we must begin. We begin in the womb.

Consider creating a SoulCollage® card or journaling with the following questions:

So what is it that needs to be birthed within us? In our world?  

How do we accept and forgive the darkness in our selves and others while nurturing and encouraging the positive?

What can we bring out of darkness and into the light?

What gives us the strength to wait in patience, to trust that our circling around will bring us into the light?

“I am one who” is a prompt to begin to speak from and about the images that intuitively come together. Using all three of the collage creations on this post, I write:Advent dark and light

I am one who walks through rough and rocky terrain.
I am one who dances gracefully in the light.
I am one who casts shadows. I am one who gets stuck.
I am one who circles around and around, sometimes feeling a little lost.

I trudge reluctantly… or tread carefully… or move forward faithfully.
I am one who, with open arms, embraces both dark and light: in myself, in others, in my world.
I see the light and the darkness, the gold and the shadows, the smooth and the rough.
I go through all…the white sand, the gold dust, the smooth and rocky, the hard and broken, the shadowy or the illuminated, the gray, the light, the dark.

I am one who is filled with hope. I pray. I am one who feels hopeless too.
Eyes open, door ajar, I glimpse the light.
I am one who closes my eyes, sometimes trusting and at times in denial.
I dance the dance of light and darkness.

I stretch out my arms in surrender to the moments, layers, phases, experiences that are light and darkness intermingled;
Darkness that seems like it will never pass and pure, unadulterated light that never ends.
I am one who believes that the Christ-child covers both light and dark, in me and in the world.

I hope, I pray that I hold the two in balance; honoring both, recognizing both, knowing I am both, knowing others are both.
I surrender to rebirth, to a new way of being and seeing and accepting.
I am one who holds together the dark and the light.

“…the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” John 1-1:5

May the darkness of Advent, the light of Christmas, and the new insights of Epiphany be with you. By holding the sufferings and joys of our life together, may we come to see Christ in new ways.

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Creating Sanctuary: The “Beautiful Ones” Group Card

“Altars can be very powerful…We acknowledge an incarnate God who speaks through symbols and the things of our everyday lives…” -The Artist’s Rule, Christine Valters Paintner

An altar can be a centering, focal point for group or personal prayer or creativity. The altar placed in the center of our creative space during the Sprigs of Rosemary Advent Retreat held symbols of the season and the retreat—an advent wreath surrounded by fresh rosemary and a rosemary candle.

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Throughout the retreat, more symbols were added.  Each woman placed SoulCollage® cards they had made over the days as well as offering a single image that resonated with them that later I would create into a group card—something I’ve never done before. For the closing session, each woman lit their own rosemary candle from the larger candle and special blessings were shared.

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Symbols and rituals create pathways in our hearts and minds, allowing us to carry meaningful experiences with us into our ordinary lives. Creating our group card was one such experience. With permission from the Beautiful Ones, a term of endearment coined by Sara—a dear friend and retreat participant—find reflections and I Am One Who Statements from some of our group.

sprigs of rosemary womens retreat

Betty shared—“There was a bond formed within this retreat of Beautiful Ones that will keep us united eternally. Christ sat with us the entire time. I’m still at a loss to describe how this retreat touched and changed me.  I only know since the card reading, I have learned more about myself and my relationship with God.  Both have deepened to a level I have never experienced. I really can’t find words to express what is different—inner confidence I’ve lacked, acceptance of physical issues, but most of all a deepening in my trust of my Lord. My mantra, Jesus I trust in you is going to depths I never expected.  Continue reading “Creating Sanctuary: The “Beautiful Ones” Group Card” →

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2020 Words of the Year–Carry On!

Carry On!

The inspiration for my 2020 Word(s) of the Year came from the Sprigs of Rosemary Advent retreat that I recently led. The retreat was centered around the theme of sanctuary, inspired by the lyrics of Sanctuary written by Carrie Newcomer.

There were several questions participants were asked to consider as a guide for them during the retreat. “What do I need sanctuary from?” touched my heart.

I shared that I need sanctuary from the endless flood of thoughts that preoccupy my mind; thoughts that hold me back and keep me from being truly free. I need sanctuary from the constant rerun of conversations and/or situations that have led to hurt feelings and a sense of rejection. I need sanctuary from the relentless inner conversations that distract me from living fully and hold me a prisoner in the role of victim.

When I have strong feelings or attachments, compulsive mental role-playing commences. I replay conversations—what was said, what I could have or should have said, what he/she meant, and on and on. Once I can slow down my thoughts, create some space, and breathe, I can hear more clearly what God intends for me to know.

Being clear about what I need to detach from—my thoughts—was the creative fuel I needed to intuitively make my first card named “Sanctuary.”

“Our logical thinking mind cannot leap out of the loop, but our intuitive mind can step back and watch….the logical mind usually misses the symbolic voice heard by the intuitive senses.” Discernment Matters, Mary Margaret Funk, OSB

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Sanctuary Card–the first card of my reading.

A culminating activity of the retreat was a SoulCollage® reading. Reflecting on, praying with, or “reading” your cards is a process that never fails—if you have questions, God provides answers that are tailor-made using the images that have spoken uniquely to you. We begin by selecting one card we made during the retreat and randomly selecting two other Soulcollage® cards from our personal collection, cards made months or years earlier, taking turns with questions and reflections.

The question for my cards, interestingly evolved while I was saying it out loud—”How can I find sanctuary from my thoughts? … Actually, how can I move on from them, how can I carry on?” Continue reading “2020 Words of the Year–Carry On!” →

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You Are A Sanctuary for the Divine ~ Sprigs of Rosemary Online Advent Retreat (Closing Session)

This session closes our Advent retreat, Sprigs of Rosemary—a retreat that can be adapted to any schedule and, certainly, can be used any time of the year. This final post recognizes that YOU are a temple of God, a home for God in the world, the ultimate sanctuary for the Divine.nativity

Advent leads us from the darkness of the womb to the light of Christ at Christmas. As we journey through the weeks, we circle the Advent wreath lighting a new candle each week—a reminder that our waiting ends, that Christ will come. But it can also set our intention to be a dwelling place for God, to remind ourselves that Christ is incarnated in us. “Sanctuary” by Maranatha Music is a prayerful reminder:

Lord, prepare me to be a sanctuary
Pure and holy, tried and true
With thanksgiving, I’ll be a living
Sanctuary for You Continue reading “You Are A Sanctuary for the Divine ~ Sprigs of Rosemary Online Advent Retreat (Closing Session)” →

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