What is the Christmas season without shopping? Ask a monk and he'll tell you it's just thirty days spent waiting for Christmas. Advent can be an intense time in the cloister. That is largely because of the approach of Midnight Mass, one of the great liturgical events of the year. At New Melleray, we work hard at insuring that the liturgy is well-executed. There is a pretty high standard set as regards the quality of reading, singing, and presiding at Eucharist. Everybody knows what he's supposed to do, usually with the help of a detailed sheet of "liturgical duties" given him when he is first assigned to assist at the liturgy. At a ceremony as solemn and beautiful as Christmas Midnight Mass, special attention is paid to details and to timing. There is a delicacy with which a liturgy like this is executed. Each monk must be alert and responsive to a glance or a nod from the abbot or a cantor signaling him to commence a procession, a sung antiphon, or a reading. The rigor of such an external discipline might sound oppressive but the serenity with which the brothers carry it off is an expression of spirits that are free. This is something that is difficult to explain — this tranquility and quiet joy amidst a thousand detailed prescriptions. I am thinking of a cousin I have who hang-glides. One day, he took me with him to the foot hills of the Appalachian Mountains in North Georgia, to a place along the highway where a large concrete slab juts out over a verdant ravine. I remember the experience vividly. There, in the company of other hand glider devotees he assembles his glider while I watch. The atmosphere is tense. People chat but there are extended periods of silence. Care must be taken that the mechanical wing from which they will dangle their lives is properly assembled. It is summer time, and yet, I watch a man put on a heavy flannel shirt which he buttons securely, and then a vest, and then a coat over the vest. He is preparing for flight — not downward but upward. An experienced hang-glider knows how to ride a thermal, that is, a current of warm rising air, that will lift the glider to altitudes where it is much colder than on the ground. Some of them will be up all afternoon. The details of preparation are important, but that is because these people are preparing to fly. The clumsy and arduous wrestling with long poles and cords and boot laces is all accepted as the necessary preparation for that moment when the hang-glider will take a running leap into space. Then, all that laborious construction, turning of wing-nuts, wrapping and buttoning of clothing culminates in one great heave into the abyss where the wind works its magic and a man takes flight. Eight nights from now, a few minutes before midnight, the monks will assemble in the dark church with about one hundred and fifty guests and the cantor, alone at the lectern, will intone the solemn proclamation of Jesus' birth. The lights will come on and the Invitatory Antiphon will be sung and then the liturgy takes wings. The Holy Spirit moving in the hearts of two hundred worshipers will lift us high into realms of prayer and union with God that is the ineffable splendor the Catholic liturgy. Today we prepare.

Father Raphael