Fr Robert Hendrickson

Dear Friends in Christ,

I want to share with you, this Christmas morning, a favorite poem of mine of the season. “NOEL” by J.R.R. Tolkien was written in 1936 and it has a mythic quality in which the cosmic and the earthly are knit together in one maid’s timeless song of joy.

The memories we share today are deeper than those of a night or those of mere years. We are bound together in this ageless moment when the world, for such a brief breath, feels on the cusp.

Our days will grow tired again I’m sure, as the story fades. Yet, today, we can rest in God’s eternal stirring. Always on the move. Always at work. Always at the forge of Creation. In us, too.

That work of Creation sits with us this day. As we make room in our hearts for Christ to find a dwelling we, too, are the site of a new thing.

We, too, are given the chance to sing.

We, too, rejoice, for God on Earth is here today.

Gloria. Gloria in excelsis.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Robert

“NOEL”

Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains’ teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.
The lord of snows upreared his head;
His mantle long and pale
Upon the bitter blast was spread
And hung o’er hill and dale.
The world was blind,
the boughs were bent,
All ways and paths were wild:
Then the veil of cloud apart was rent,
And here was born a Child.
The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star came shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.
Mary sang in this world below:
They heard her song arise
O’er mist and over mountain snow
To the walls of Paradise,
And the tongue of many bells was stirred
in Heaven’s towers to ring
When the voice of mortal maid was heard,
That was mother of Heaven’s King.
Glad is the world and fair this night
With stars about its head,
And the hall is filled with laughter and light,
And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring
With bells of Christendom,
And Gloria, Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.