Every year the fourth week of Advent offers the opportunity for encounter with the Virgin Mary and her Child and for knowing them better through art — impressions from encounters others have had with them.

Every year I prepare an Advent meditation with art, and every year I feel I must include a quote from Meister Eckhart which now seems to me to illustrate the painting above.

“St. Augustine says, ‘What does it avail me that this birth is always happening, if it does not happen in me? That it should happen in me is what matters.’ We shall therefore speak of this birth, of how it may take place in us.”

Ensor’s painting finds the artist in the position of Mary at her annunciation, and also in the position of Luke, the painterly writer of the gospel we have been reading this Advent. As seen in the Netherlandish painting below, historically Luke is a patron saint of artists and shown painting Mary.

But to me there is a freshness in art of Ensor, as in the writing of Eckhart, which like a birth or a star shows the perennial and new.

Theologian Karl Barth wrote of the “strange new world within the Bible.” Some art and the Bible seem to me of one vein. The article where I found Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych below describes the “mystic ground” of Mary and earthiness of Flemish Madonnas. Below the artist’s characteristic strangeness is evident in the Virgin and Child’s abode which is framed by cityscape and landscape, and quotidian scenes of play and war.

The art in this post, it turns out, is not what I shared in this year’s Advent meditation. But so it happens as this birth takes place anew and God’s promise is fulfilled. We might not know where to look, we may be in a dark night, but as God is here so also are the Mother and Child, appearing anew every time someone opens the eye of their heart to them.

As the journey continues, I hope you can join us for part of it. Here is our Christmas worship schedule:

Christmas Eve Mass with Bishop Williamson and hymns sung by the Congregation

Tuesday, Dec. 24, 4PM 

Christmas Eve Midnight Mass sung by The Cathedral Choir

Tuesday, Dec. 24, 11PM 

Christmas Day Mass sung by The Cathedral Choir

Wednesday, Dec. 25, 9AM

And please take note a new development in our fine choral music program — a new opportunity for both boys and girls who want to sing — a novice class begins on January 8, 2025. Click HERE for more information.

May the birth that matters take place in each one of us this Christmas and grow throughout the New Year. Peace.