ADVENT 2002 MEDITATIONS

Week 4: William Stringfellow Keeper of the Word
Our Lady of the New Advent: The Gate of Heaven
Our Lady of the New Advent The Burning Bush




On the 27th, comes the Priests' day of Saint John the Evangelist. Was it, too, purely symbolic, or did John truly die on December 27th? An aged bishop of Ephesus so reverenced as the last of the Apostles that the Muse of History could accurately retain memory of the date of his death? Whatever the answer, John's legend was already full of winter stories, tinged with twelve tide bittersweet by the time of Constantine. His dying words, wrote Jerome, were "little children, love one another." Augustine tells that on his burial the earth that covered him moved strangely, and when the sarcophagus was opened it was empty: the Lord had reserved him for personal battle with Antichrist at the Second Advent - which doubtless would occur at the winter season.
From: St. Nicholas of Myra, Bari and Manhattan
By: Charles Jones


In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
Albert Camus
Though I was always drawn to them, I have come to love the Prophets more and more… the surrender of their bodies and lives to the word, their inability to compromise, the aura of God which spreads from their skin and either illumes a person's darkness, or adds to their light. I have always needed to put myself beneath their clarity and risk burning under their 'blow torch' words. This is also a practice in different Buddhist sects; to find someone who is willing to share their hard-won wisdom with you, the comical and the suffering - which mold a true guide. But how do you know a true guide or prophet? Christ says you know them by their fruit, their deeds, their abandonment and even contempt for earthly praise or reputation, the obedience to bearing the Word-as-Truth into the world, which hates to hear them. In the book of Samuel, the Lord tells the prophet " They have not rejected you Samuel, but they rejected me, that I should not reign over them"(1 Samuel 8:7). In Revelation 11 the two prophets are murdered and "… nations gaze at their bodies and refuse to let them be placed in a tomb, and those who dwell on the earth will rejoice over them and make merry and exchange presents, because these two prophets had been a torment to those who dwell on the earth" (Revelation 11: 9-11). Both John the Baptist and Jesus echo the prophets before them in specific values or interests they choose to repeat over and over again. These are easily summed-up in the Lord's Sermon on the Mount where he pours forth the beatitudes and promises persecution to those who hold these values dear. If I had to choose one prophet who prepared the way for John Paul II's New Advent, it would be the Episcopalian Theologian, William Stringfellow. Educated at Bates College (class of 1949) and then Harvard Law School, he chose to practice law in Harlem.




His experience there deepened both his legal and religious thought, shaped the message of his widely influential books… He urgently called Americans to attend to the social evils most visibly affecting the urban poor… He offered his service to the frightened, the defeated, angry, the 'have nots' in society of comparative plenty… Stringfellow gained a reputation as a formidable critic of the social, military and economic policies of our country and as a tireless advocate for racial and social justice. That justice, he insisted, could be realized only if it were pursued spiritually. As a Christian, he firmly believed that he had been committed in Baptism to a life-long struggle against the "Powers and Principalities" as systematic evil is sometimes called in the New Testament, or the "Power of Death"… Stringfellow declared it most prophetically through his very life. He boldly proclaimed that being a faithful follower of Jesus means to declare oneself free from all forces of death and destruction and to submit oneself single-heartedly to the power of life. Stringfellow is especially well known for his thorough going theological and political analysis of the "Powers and Principalities" which interfere with the radical commitment to Life, an analysis which cleared the way for later theologians and peace activists.
Kerry Maloney
Chaplain of Bates College

In 1977, one year before Karol Wojtyla became Pope, William Stringfellow wrote a brief article on the Second Advent in which he clearly differentiates the quality, or presence of the Lord in the First and Second Advents:

Each Advent is attended by mystery, what is now known of either event is not all that is to be known, but what is confessed by Christians as to both Advents is known to them through the conjunction of the two.

That which is known and affirmed now because of the First Advent and in the expectancy of the Second Advent is, however, enough to be politically decisive, that is to say, enough to edify choice and action in issues of conscience and obedience to the rulers of the world. In the First Advent, Christ comes as Lord; in the next Advent, Christ comes as judge of the world and the world's principalities and thrones, in vindication of his reign and of the sovereignty of the Word of God in history. This is the wisdom, which the world deems folly, which biblical people bear and by which they live as the church in the world for the time being.

For primitive Christians so much defamed and so often harassed and sometimes savaged in first century Rome, the secret of the First Advent was thought to be in the consolation of the next Advent. The pathos and profound absurdity of the birth of Jesus Christ was understood to be trans-figured in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. The significance of Advent could only be realized in the hope for the return of Jesus Christ.
The Second Advent of the Lord
By: William Stringfellow, 1977
In February of 1991, I got one of those letters, that unknown to you, is a kind of Annunciation which completely alter your life. It was a simple request from the Archbishop of Denver asking if I would like to try my hand at creating an image of Our Lady of the New Advent as the Patroness of the Archdiocese of Denver. At this time I had only been an apprentice to the Russian-American master, Robert Lentz, for four months and had painted only two icons. I lacked the language, the technique and most of all the depth of understanding of the centuries-old mystical tradition of the Holy Orthodox Church. So I sent the Archbishop three versions of my favorite icons, Our Lady of the Sign, because of the immediacy of the presence of the Mother and Child. He chose a 19th century Russian version and asked for specific modifications;




That Mary be robed in the purple of advent,
that the Child have dark hair to represent the vast majority of people,
that the Rocky Mountains of Colorado be present,
that the Colorado state flower be also somewhere present.
I decided to place the columbines in the Child's hand as if he had just plucked them from the ground and wanted to give them to you. Years later, after the Columbine massacre, I saw the power of him holding the flowers as the murdered children. This is the icon that separated my life, before and after. This is the icon that led me from my prior life as an AIDS hospice chaplain, into a permanent vocation as a Priest / Iconographer, something perhaps novel in the Western Church, but an ancient vocation in the East. A vocation I knew very little about. I also had no idea of what the New Advent was. In fact it struck me as theologically "unstable". It was only after I'd finished the icon that things began to come to me, gradually building my understanding. First it was the quotes from Jerome and Augustine, Stringfellow and Ray Brown's work on an "Adult Christ for Advent". Then came the news that the Archbishop had petitioned Rome for a feast day for Our Lady of the New Advent, and had received the date December 16th. Then came the possibility that Denver might be chosen to host the coming World Youth Day in 1993.

In November of 1994, John Paul sent out an Apostolic Letter entitled "Tertio Millennio Adveninte", which became the source of nourishment for my spiritual life from that time forward; even to this day. I hadn't read much of the Holy Father's Work. What I had read, beginning with his dissertation on John of the Cross, had seemed lucid, intelligent, but a bit dry. But the Apostolic Letter on the New Advent was brimming with joy, hope, and a personal revelation. It's 'program' of spending three extended years in examination of conscience, as a church community, individual… and then confess, "come clean", was powerful. Taking the admonishment and advice of the late theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, the Pope himself apologized for 94 major sins of the church that he recognized since it's foundation, ending with the sinful treatment of women.

Beginning in 1997, he dedicated three more years to the Trinity. 1997 would be the Word Incarnate, Jesus Christ. 1998 would be the year of the Holy Spirit, and in the spirit of the Lord's parable of the prodigal son, 1999 would be a return to the father. I was personally awestruck. Had any Pope ever dedicated three years to confession and three years to the Trinity? To me, it said the stakes were so high, we were in such trouble that this massive 'sacralization' had to take place.

Finally to step back in time to World Youth Day, I was commissioned by the Archbishop to create another icon of Our Lady of the New Advent that he could present to the Holy Father. Through circumstances way out of my control, I was strongly pressed to come to Denver and give it to him myself.




You can believe someone is a genius, a figure bigger than life, even a saint, and still not 'like' them or agree with them and in 1993 this was how I felt about the Pope. As I stepped onto the stage carrying the icon with eyes down, I figured he wouldn't really see me but simply take the gift and that would be it. All of a sudden he's coming toward me with his arms open as if he is Elizabeth receiving the Mother of God in the Visitation. As I walked into the radiance of the tangible sphere of his holiness, I was changed forever. I had no idea how much I would be instantly wounded with love for him, and how much that love would continue to form and affect my life. I staggered off the stage, he practically had to direct me, I was so disoriented, having met and touched, not only a living saint, but also the man I believe had been chosen for this crucial time by the Mother of God herself, the Lady of the New Advent. I close with a prayer commissioned by the Arch Bishop of Denver to the Mother of God of the New Advent, written by the Nuns of the convent of Walburga in Colorado.

Prayer to Our Lady of the New Advent
O Lady and Mother
of the One who was and is and is to come,
dawn of the New Jerusalem,
we earnestly beseech you,
bring us by your intercession
so to live in love
that the Church, the Body of Christ,
may stand in this world's dark
as fiery icon on the New Jerusalem.
We ask you to obtain for us this mercy
through Jesus Christ, Your Son and Lord,
who lives and reigns
with the Father in the Holy Spirit,
one God forever and ever.
Amen.

Father William Hart McNichols November 11, 2002 St. Martin of Tours

November 2002
Father William Hart Dominic McNichols






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