Advent Devotional for December 2nd

Interior of the Rosaire Chapel - Ville de Vence, France

[The devotional entries for the remainder of time leading up to Christmas Day (with the exception of Sundays) will come from a devotional prepared for London's Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in 2005. These entries take as a theme, 'Hope to the ends of the earth,' a belief echoed in T.S. Eliot's poem, The Journey of the Magi. Advent is about a journey: what and/or who do you hope to find on Christmas morning?]

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." - Isaiah 43:18-19)

To Vence - small, on a sun warmed hill, uncommercial, slow, peaceful. Walked to the Matisse cathedral - small, pure, clean-cut. White, with blue tile roof sparkling in the sun. But shut! Only open to the public two days a week... I was desolate and wandered to the back of the walled nunnery, where I could see a corner of the chapel and sketched it, feeling like Alice outside the garden, watching the white doves and orange trees... I began to cry. I knew it was so lovely inside, pure white with the sun through blue, yellow and green stained windows.

Then I heard a voice. "Ne pleurez plus, entrez," (cry more, enter) and the Mother Superior let me in, after denying all the wealthy people in cars. I just knelt in the sun and the colours of sky, sea and sun, in the pure white heart of the chapel. "Vous êtes si gentil," (You are so nice) I stammered. The nun smiled. "C'est la miséricorde de Dieu." (It is the mercy of God) It was.

- A postcard to her mother from the poet Sylvia Plath