Preview: Advent with Caryll Houselander on the Son Rise Morning Show

Based on a collection of excerpts from Caryll Houselander's works, Matt Swaim, Anna Mitchell, and I will discuss Advent themes starting Monday, November 30 (which is also St. Andrew's feast day). I'll be on at my usual time (7:50 a.m. Eastern/6:50 a.m. Central) on Sacred Heart Radio, and I'm sure they'll repeat each segment later in the week during the EWTN national broadcast hour. On Monday, you may listen--unless you're in the broadcast area of Sacred Heart Radio--online here.

Caryll Houselander (September 29, 1901-October 12, 1954) was a convert to Catholicism when she was a child, baptized after her mother became a Catholic. She could also be called a "Revert" because she left the practice of the Catholic Faith and explored other spiritualities, including Buddhism, before returning to the Church. Her parents divorced when she was nine and Houselander had a difficult childhood and was often ill, but also began to have mystical experiences as a young girl, as this article explains:

Among the sisters at the school, there was one German nun who spoke very little English and who was isolated from family and friends after World War I began. Houselander recalled coming upon her one day as she was polishing shoes. Tears running down her face, Houselander noticed her hands “were folded in a way that expressed inconsolable grief.”

She continued, “We were both quite silent and I stare down at her beautiful hands, afraid to look up and then – I saw – the nun crowned with the Crown of Thorns. I shall not attempt to explain this. I am simply telling the thing as I saw it. That bowed head was weighed under the Crown of Thorns.”

“I stood for – I suppose – a few seconds, dumbfounded and then, finding my tongue, I said to her, ‘I would not cry, if I was wearing the crown of thorns, like you are.’ She looked at me as if she were startled, and asked, ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I don’t know,’ I said, and at the time I did not. I sat down beside her and together we polished the shoes,” Houselander recounted.

She also had a vision of the last Romanov Czar being murdered (when she was interested in Russian Orthodoxy). But the most important vision was seeing Christ in each person she encountered:

Houselander recalled traveling from work on an underground train with every manner of man headed home from the day’s work, writing: “Quite suddenly, I saw with my mind, but as vividly as a wonderful picture, Christ in them all. But I saw more than that; not only was Christ in every one of them, living in them, dying in them, rejoicing in them, sorrowing in them – but because he was in them, and because they were here, the whole world was here in this underground train, not only the world as it was at that moment, not only at the people in the countries of the world, but all those yet to come. I came out into the street and walked for a long time in the crowds. It was the same here, on every side, in every passerby – Christ.”

These visions are part of what informs her spiritual writing, which became very popular during World War II as she helped Catholics and other Christians understand the suffering they were enduring. She's been compared to Julian of Norwich and there's also an element of St. Therese of Lisieux's Little Way in her writing as she emphasizes the spirituality of daily tasks and work.  Houselander is also practical and common-sensical, offering spiritual advice for those who don't have visions. She was a prolific writer in the 1940's and some of  her works were republished in the late 20th and early 21st century.

In these Advent writings, selected and excerpted from The Reed of God (about the Blessed Virgin Mary), The Passion of the Infant Christ, The Risen Christ, and The Comforting of Christ, her emphasis on silence, simplicity, seeing the depths of God's love for us in everyday things, and patience, make them an excellent way to slow down and wait for Christmas to come to us. Thomas Hoffman has chosen several passages that focus on the Mother of God's patiently waiting for the development of the Savior in her womb and the fulfillment of the promises made to her and her people.

As others have said before, Christmas does not begin on Black Friday and end on December 25. The time of Advent, which once was a time of fasting and penance in the Roman/Western Catholic Church--and still is in the Eastern Rite Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches--at least should still be a time of stillness and waiting. So put off the Christmas parties and carols, chant the O Antiphons during the last week of Advent, and wait for Season of Christmas, beginning on December 24!

In the meditations selected for the first week of Advent, Hoffman chose one for the first Sunday of Advent from The Reed of God that emphasizes patience:

There is great virtue in practicing patience in small things until the habit of Advent returns to us. . . . 

This habit of Advent may be part of the rhythm of our life, she says, or be immediately present as a "result of conversion or of a new awareness of God or of an increase of love". Or it can be painful as we want to start right off and find it difficult. Houselander offers the example of the Mother of God for our imitation:

In her the Word of God chose to be silent for the season measured by God. She, too, was silent; in her the Light of the world shone in darkness.

So it may take us some time--especially after all the celebrations of Thanksgiving Day and the holiday weekend after it--to get into the Advent spirit. Houselander reassures us that we need to let God help us into this habit and spirit.

In the Thursday meditation from The Passion of the Infant Christ, she offers the image of Jesus in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary--she was not in control of how the unborn Son of God Incarnate developed--encouraging us to allow Him "to rest in us" and "wait patiently on His own timing of His growth in us" so that "we are formed into Him."

I think she's reminding us that we are not in charge of our own spiritual growth. We need to cooperate with the gifts of grace that God gives us, but we need to be careful of thinking that we can force an Advent spirit upon ourselves. Thus she encourages patience and silence.