This past lent I read Friends of Jesus A Lenten Meditation, by Father Caldwell and greatly enjoyed it. When this volume for advent was announced I eagerly anticipated it. I was very thankful that the CTS was able to get the eBook edition out for this holiday season. I picked it up to read the introduction in preparation of Advent starting this week, and could not put it down. So I decided to publish a review and encourage others to pick it up this year. And I will read it again starting the First Sunday of Advent.
As of the reading this I have read over 458 volumes from the Catholic Truth Society over the last 7 years, many of them more than once. This is an ecxcellent volume for Advent, or that could be worked through at any point in the year. It is a great little volume.
The description of this volume states:
“Through daily reflections across the four weeks of Advent, A Journey to the Crib accompanies you to the stable at Bethlehem, alongside the familiar figures of the Nativity Story, ensuring you will be ready to greet the Christ child on Christmas morning with the same abundant joy and thanksgiving that they did.
What if your Advent wasn't just a countdown but a pilgrimage to the Christ child?
Each Advent, as we prepare for the coming of Christ at Christmas, we may often find ourselves distracted by the noise of the world around us. However, with this beautifully written devotional from Fr Philip Caldwell, author of Friends of Jesus, learn to travel towards the manger more slowly, purposefully, and prayerfully, guided by Scripture, art, and the familiar figures of the Nativity.
Through daily reflections across the four weeks of Advent, A Journey to the Crib accompanies you from the first steps of the season's waiting and expectation to the joy of arrival at the stable. Along the way, you’ll meet the familiar figures of Christmas – shepherds and animals, kings and angels, midwives and saints – each revealing a more lively and profound response of faith in you.
Whether you undertake the journey alone or in the company of a group, this devotional opens a deeper conversation with God through prayer, beauty, and contemplation. By Christmas, you will not only reach the crib, but you will be ready to greet the Christ child on Christmas morning with the same abundant joy and thanksgiving that they did.”
The chapters in this volume are:
Introduction
Week One: Setting Out
Adoration of the Children
Chiaroscuro
Waiting in Expectation
A Space and a Time for Waiting
Taking the Straight Path
Week Two: The Journey
Ox
The Donkey’s Cheerful Trot
The Dumb Ox
The Leopard and the Scruffy Little Bird
The Peacock and the Monkey
Week Three: The Angels
Rest on the Flight to Egypt
The Archangel Michael
The Archangel Gabriel
The Heavenly Host
Our Guardian Angels
Week Four: Arriving
Adoration of the Magi
The Shepherds and a Midwife
The Wise Men and Women
Men and Women Bringing Gifts
Simeon and Anna
Conclusion
From the introduction we are informed:
“This little booklet has been written to accompany your Advent journey to the crib of Christ. In company with those we generally only meet at Bethlehem, our journey’s end – shepherds and animals, kings and angels, midwives and saints – a deeper conversation has been opened up along our way. Through daily meditations on the word of God, given in Sacred Scripture and reflected in art and literature, it’s hoped that the characters of the familiar Christmas scene will evoke a more lively and profound response of faith in you.
Divided across the four weeks of Advent, each section centres on a different stage of the journey and beginning with a visual image, seeks to engage your own reflections on the mystery of the Incarnation. You might like to undertake the journey in the company of a larger group or follow it as a daily retreat in life alone. However you choose to follow it, I hope your journey will be richly blessed by your journey’s end.”
I enjoyed the structured nature of this volume. The picture of a piece of artwork and then 5 days of meditations for each week of advent. With not having a section for every day if the season gets busy you can always just skip a day and continue the next. So each week we have a piece of artwork as our central point and then reflections based on that work, and imagery within the work. It draws from Saints throughout church history, and many of my personal favourites. I highlighted a number of passages my first time through this volume, some of them are:
“Chiaroscuro particularly lends itself to scenes of mystery, where artists can make their viewers wonder what might emerge from the apparent emptiness of the dark. Such mastery of light and dark, how they interplay in the human condition, and in our world–the search for what is emerging within God’s mysterious plan–is the stuff of Advent.”
“On 21 December, the shortest day of the year and therefore the longest night, the whole Church yearns for light–on that day, in the darkness, the cry goes up “O Oriens”–O Rising Sun come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. This is a constant theme of our Advent, isn’t it?”
“Then and there, in the night, a mysterious quest for the One who is Other begins–and suddenly the night is filled with all possibility:”
“The essential meaning of Advent–parousia–is the beginning of a sense of being–the awakening to a presence which brings us out of ourselves and into a delightful and mysterious search for God.”
“There is no threat in the immediacy of Christ’s coming–it isn’t bullying or coercive but when considered calmly, it’s an invitation to focus on what is essential and true.”
“God expects us to bring all our potential home but in the right order, home to God without any of the brute in us being denied or evaded. Finding a way to live the truth about ourselves, a way that brings us life, is a task every age and generation faces.”
“What can we learn from them of the discipline of the Christian journey, of the faithfulness and self-mastery necessary to gain our goal?”
“Well, that while each one of us might be a bit of a donkey from day to day, we are each blessed with the ability to hear God’s word and to announce it loud and clear, especially if danger should come. And that while the lives of each of us are marked by the cross, we now have a Saviour who isn’t distant, neither out in front or far behind but at our side: one of us, a friend who allows us to walk the path of life with a cheerful trot.”
“And one last thing about donkeys: they’re highly social, they like to be together, and when carrying a heavy burden, they lean into one another for support. Like the donkey, we were born for this: to hear the Word and speak it, to carry our cross–to bear each other’s burdens on the journey of life–and to lean into each other and to Christ on our cheerful trot through life.”
“Advent and Christmas can be an emotional time for many of us. We feel the grief of loss more than ever just now–when the immediate company of one we love has gone. We can feel desire for earthly things that point to our deepest desire of unending joy, and we can feel disgust at all that does not satisfy but which seems to have an inordinate control on our lives.”
“The journey of Advent is marked by quiet preparation when the Holy Spirit shapes the groans of humanity into the angels’ prayer of eternal praise (Rom 8: 26-27). Yet the angels are with us on this journey; sent to alert us to the increasing presence of God.”
“St Michael the Archangel is the first angel of Advent. He stands at the gateway to the season. Sometimes, we read from the Book of Daniel in the final week of the Church’s year and occasionally on the Feast of Christ the King.”
“The role of an angel messenger is to unite, not separate. To put us into personal contact with that grace that gives us the knowledge and power to be like God. Hence Michael is an angel of hope, someone who takes away our fear and gives us courage.”
“Perhaps, this was the sense of the shepherds, who in the midst of their work on that dark night, joined the same eternal song. Harmonising with heaven at Mass, during the days of our Advent preparation, means that like those shepherds, we have a song that leads us to the sign of a manger–a place of eating where we share the Bread of Angels.”
“Densely populated with figures, flooded with detail, and alive with movement, surely, a first thought is that there’s a place for anyone and everyone here: all of life is present to the Infant King.”
“And this is where our meditation has brought us, where life has brought us–to a place where we offer our all and receive God’s very self.”
“Advent, the readings tempt us to share in the wisdom of the Wise Men and women of the Gospels–to try in this season to push ourselves out of selfishness and to connect with others, to be challenged and to give of oneself charitably, to be changed by who and what we meet. That is the worldly wisdom of the Magi. But when it is guided by the Gospel, it leads to a new awareness, a revelation of something more: new life in Christ.”
“God only sees our giftedness and our gifts. God only sees and loves in us what he sees and loves in His own Son; God’s gift to us. This is what the epiphany we are journeying to is really about–and all who are wise recognise it!”
“Through the Simeons and the Annas we are closer to Him than we’ll ever know. Isn’t this the key to those words from the Letter to the Hebrews?”
“Surely, in the mystery of the Incarnation God wills for us to become like little children again as we remember the house where he was born? And that His gift of faith allows us to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
A sample day is:
“Day Two: The Donkey’s Cheerful Trot St Josemaría Escrivá
I’d like to talk to you about the donkey. The donkey in the stable, the donkey who’s always close to the child Jesus in the manger. He touches our heart, the donkey, doesn’t he? The doleful eyes and the big ears. Everybody loves the little donkey! A simple, ugly-but-beautiful, brute who somehow finds himself a plum place on the day of days. I’ve always loved the donkey. But sometimes, we forget that the donkey is there for a reason and that he carries a special message to us on Christmas night/day; a prophetic message. Shall we consider the donkey, then, and what he’s got to teach us this Christmas?
The ancient writers thought that God becoming one of us, being born in a human nature, was so amazing that the whole of creation would feel it; even animals would be mesmerised – the Prophet Isaiah, many years before Christ – said that on that day of the Lord’s birth “the ox will know its owner and the donkey its master’s care” – Isaiah believed that when the Saviour came, the animals – who don’t have the sophistication or complications of us humans – would recognise this child as their owner, someone who cares for them. Somehow, the baby would make a deep impression on these creatures. And if the child can fascinate and enthral a poor donkey, what can the child Jesus do for us?
There is a Spanish saint, Josemaría Escrivá, and he was very fond of comparing himself to a donkey: the donkey that carries Jesus, the donkey in the crib scene. A line in the Psalms meant a lot to Josemaría: “I was like a brute beast before you and you were with me always” (Ps 77). It wasn’t just the humility and simplicity of the donkey that the saint liked – but the fact that this ordinary stubborn creature carried the Saviour.
St Josemaría noticed the animal’s big ears and the braying voice: he felt that these carried part of the donkey’s message. Did you know that donkeys have acute hearing? Normally quiet animals, they communicate loudly and clearly when they’re in danger. They listen carefully and communicate clearly.
And Escrivá realised that donkeys see differently, too, because of how their eyes are set, they have a blind spot straight ahead. As a result – unlike a horse – a donkey won’t be led by the nose. Have you ever seen one dig in its heels and stubbornly refuse to go forward? Because of their blind spot, you have to stand at a donkey’s shoulder and walk along by their side. So those words of Albert Camus are true of every donkey: “Don’t walk in front of me, I may not follow, …don’t walk behind me I may not lead, …just walk beside me and be my friend.” Alongside its owner and friend, the donkey breaks into a cheerful trot.
And then, of course, there’s the mysterious mark on every donkey’s back: each one is marked by a cross. They say God ordained it so for the important load the animal would carry. So, what then does the donkey prophesy to us this Advent?
Well, that while each one of us might be a bit of a donkey from day to day, we are each blessed with the ability to hear God’s word and to announce it loud and clear, especially if danger should come. And that while the lives of each of us are marked by the cross, we now have a Saviour who isn’t distant, neither out in front or far behind but at our side: one of us, a friend who allows us to walk the path of life with a cheerful trot.
And one last thing about donkeys: they’re highly social, they like to be together, and when carrying a heavy burden, they lean into one another for support. Like the donkey, we were born for this: to hear the Word and speak it, to carry our cross – to bear each other’s burdens on the journey of life – and to lean into each other and to Christ on our cheerful trot through life.
So, when you see the donkey looking out at you from the crib scene at Christmas, remember he’s not just a pretty face! He carries a prophetic message too: “I have become a brute beast in your presence Lord, and You are with me always.”
I hope those quotes and sample reflection give you a feel for this volume. This is an excellent little volume. It would be great for personal use, or to be read as a family.
This is a great little resource from the Catholic Truth Society it is wonderful to work through before Advent and with plans to read it again over the 4 weeks of Advent, you could work through it any time of the church year, for personal reflection. I can easily recommend this booklet.
