On this final day of Advent, the Cottage calendar is open to all readers and may be shared as widely as you like!

The reading, “Christmas Eve,” focuses on Mary the Mother of Jesus and is found in A Beautiful Year, pages 38-40.

Listen to today’s window in the audio player above. There’s also a “transcript” option for those who want to read along. Just click on the transcript button.

The song of Mary is the oldest Advent hymn…It is at once the most passionate, the wildest, one might even say the most revolutionary Advent hymn ever sung. This is not the gentle, tender, dreamy Mary whom we sometimes see in paintings; this is the passionate, surrendered, proud, enthusiastic Mary who speaks out here.

This song has none of the sweet, nostalgic, or even playful tones of some of our Christmas carols. It is instead a hard, strong, inexorable song about collapsing thrones and humbled lords of this world, about the power of God and the powerlessness of humankind. These are the tones of the women prophets of the Old Testament that now come to life in Mary’s mouth.

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

THANK YOU

Thank you to everyone who participated in Advent at The Cottage by reading Sunday Musings, following the Advent calendar, reading selections from A Beautiful Year, leaving thoughts and comments on posts, sharing with friends, or being part of Homebrewed Christianity’s “Advent Against Empire” course (which I co-hosted with Tripp Fuller).

Everything produced and written this month — except the “Advent Against Empire” course — can be found on the Cottage webpage and clicking the “ARCHIVE” in the menu bar. You can catch up or reread posts there. If you became a new subscriber during December and missed material, I hope you’ll browse the posts you may have missed.

I hope that our journey through the theme of TIME helped you refocus, sparked your spiritual imagination, and inspired you to take action on behalf of peace, justice, and love of neighbor.

So grateful you have been here in whatever way or ways you took part.

This is just the beginning of a beautiful year.

from “Mary Sang of Revolution”

We must sing of revolution,Add our voice to Mary’s song:Power and empire overthrowing,Righting centuries of wrong.Like a mother’s rending labor,To God’s reign must we give birth.Through the pain, a new creation:Peace and justice on the earth.

— Henry Lebedinsky

Please contact the composer at henrylebedinsky[at]gmail.com for permissions and music.

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