Advent Musings: Conditor Alme Siderum

CREATOR OF THE STARS OF NIGHT

I grew up in the country far beyond city lights.  At night, it was very dark outside.  I can remember on warm summer evenings lying in the grass on our front lawn to gaze up at the stars.  I had not thought of this for a many years.  But a couple of weeks ago, I took our dog for a walk late at night just before going to bed; and as I arrived back home and turned up into the driveway I noticed the moon and one solitary planet rising above the trees behind our house.  With my eyes heavenward, I tried to see other stars but there were too many neighborhood lights to see anything else in the sky.  I missed the stars.  As I lay in bed that evening my mind wandered back to those many evenings in the front lawn where I could gaze up and see entire constellations, and see for myself that the earth was just one of many bodies of matter floating on the rim of the Milkyway.  It made me feel small but at the same time I felt connected to something far greater, far more awesome.  It was humbling.

All of this hit home when I opened my Advent devotional the next morning and read a prayer that I used to chant at evening prayer during Advent while in the Novitiate. 

Conditor alme siderum,

Aeterna lux credentium,

Christe Redemptor omnium,

Exaudi preces supplicum.

Creator of the stars of night,

Your people’s everlasting light,

O Christ, Redeemer of us all,

We pray you hear us when we call.

I knew that the Latin word ‘siderum’ meant more than ‘star.’  Far more.  It included stars but also the sun and moon and planets and all the heavenly constellations and comets and meteors.  The very next stanza speaks to this:

In sorrow that the ancient curse

Should doom to death a universe,

You came, O Savior, to set free

 Your own in glorious liberty.

The ancients thought of these heavenly bodies as living beings.  They could see them move about the heavens.  They knew their cycles of waxing and waning.  They knew that their affects could change the course of human destiny, especially the lives of mariners who confronted the tidal changes of the vast oceans.

Remembering these lines made me think of all those other eschatological texts of scripture where the whole of the created universe responds to the presence of its God; so many of which offered images far more sinister than a star studded evening sky.  The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give her light, the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. [Matthew 24.29].  Suddenly this Advent hymn reminded me more of the ‘Dies irae’ sung at every requiem service.

So then, just as the world seems at the verge of extinction the hymn turns to a beseeching prayer.

Come, Sun and Savior, to embrace

Our gloomy world, its weary race,

As groom to bride, as bride to groom:

the wedding chamber, Mary’s womb.

At your great Name, O Jesus, now

All knees must bend, all hearts must bow;

All things on earth with one accord

Like those in heav’n, shall call you Lord.

Come in your holy might, we pray,

Redeem us for eternal day;

Defend us while we dwell below,

From all assaults of our dread foe.

 Just as the world seems doomed to certain extinction, the Sun comes forth in a blaze of light and begins its paschal journey across the whole of human life and experience. 

Since Friday, a week ago, the world does seems doomed to extinction.  As twenty six beautiful lights were extinguished in Newtown, the world seems a darker place.  Twenty of them were children, sweet, innocent children, children with wonder in their eyes, children with lilting voices and infectious laughs, children who were loved, children who had no reason to fear evil.  Until evil came for them. Until the dread foe arrived.  How can the world go on?  How can we survive yet another assault.  If ever we need to hear about the God of Hope, the God who comes, it is now.

I give thanks that this God who we are awaiting this Advent season is a God who is not removed from our sufferings.  The blessing of the incarnation is that we now have a God who has lived a human life.   Our God weeps with us in our pain.  When Jesus went to the tomb of his good friend Lazarus, whom Jesus would soon raise from the dead, he wept. Why? Because he loved Lazarus, as he loved Lazarus's sisters, Mary and Martha.  He understands our loss and our suffering and stands with us.  But this God who weeps also promises us eternal life.  And that is the only comfort that holds us together as we weep with all those families in Newtown.  For our part, we can work to end violence, to console those who remain and to build a more loving society.  Let that be our mission for the new year.