On the first day of each week of Advent, Seeing the Word will post an illumination paired with an audio reading of the associated Scripture passage. The subsequent days will feature one of the six movements of visio divina: Listening, Meditating, Seeing, Praying, Contemplating, and Becoming Christ-like.
WEEK two•DAY Four
Messianic Predictions
Isaiah 7:13-14, 9:6-7
Messianic Predictions, Thomas Ingmire, Copyright 2005, The Saint John’s Bible, Saint John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota USA. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Seeing
When I asked God to open my eyes to the illumination, it was not toward a particular color or shape. Rather, the illumination evokes in me feelings of movement and energy, resembling the hustle and bustle of the red carpet of Hollywood, and triumphant sounds of trumpet blasts. You can almost hear Handel’s Messiah breaking through the ink and page. Humor me (and I mean this with all due respect), but it feels like a Tetris game meets Picasso as the pointed shapes and the circles fall into each other.
Advent occurs when the weather is frigid, on the cusp of the tail end of the autumn season, when days are shorter and light is a true gift. This illumination is contrary to that—the messianic predictions create a movement of energy, of light and warmth. I enter into the Paschal Mystery because although the Advent liturgy is shaped by our longing and waiting, this illumination is an explosion of movement that alludes almost to the joy and excitement of Easter.
The circles of gold, bordered by the various titles, to me, allude to the rose windows of old European cathedrals. These in turn echo intricate evergreens that shape advent wreaths, a home devotional that has found its way into liturgical communities. These beautiful circles of greenery give way to the progressively consuming light of candles, as the winter nights grow longer.
The hints of blue all around allow me to celebrate God’s promise of mercy with Mary, one of the important Advent characters, whom God has chosen. Further, the blue brings me to a place of prayer by connecting with Mary’s Magnificat. And so in this promise of mercy to be with us, the gold throughout the illumination allows us to shout our praises that God is entering our world as we cry out, Maranatha!
John Michael Reyes is a Campus Minister at Santa Clara University. He received a Master of Divinity degree from the Graduate Theological Union (JST and FST). Prior to SCU, he worked as Liturgist and Chapel Coordinator at Seattle University. Additionally, in recent years, he has served as a liturgy coordinator for the annual Los Angeles Religious Education Congress. He hopes to be able to study at Saint John’s School of Theology and Seminary some day.