Waiting...

The clock is ticking, and that's about it.  H is asleep on the couch, our son is home, asleep in his room upstairs.  Our daughter is on her way, will get in about midnight.  The house is in the low hum of  night, waiting, seemingly, as I am for my daughter, tonight, and Him tomorrow night.  We have been waiting our whole lives for him, but more fervently this past month.  In my dreams, at Advent beginning, all the books I would read and the prayerful times spent were all laid out and lined up before me, dreams but not reality.  One book, not finished.  Advent fast, semi-falling apart right here at the end of the Silent Wait.  I will re-group, here tonight, in the quietness as I wait for Celena.  10:45.  This is the time for Night Prayer, and I will answer its call.  And then perhaps a Rosary as I sit in the rocker and wait in silence for her and for Him. 

Octave Day of the Immaculate Conception

(taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal, circa 1951)

  The date of Mary's Nativity on September 8th caused her Conception to be celebrated during Advent, the season when the Church awaits "the Emmanuel whom a virgin shall conceive" (Communion of the Wednesday in Advent Ember Week).
  Devotion to the Mother of God holds an important place in the liturgy of Advent.  One may say that the period comprising Advent, Christmas and Epiphany constitutes the real season or month of Mary.
  The Church does not yet possess Jesus, but she already has His Mother, "the beginning of Christ" as Bossuet calls her.  This period represents the first phase of the existence of the Saviour on earth.  The divine Infant rests gently in Mary, a living tabernacle which the pious sculptors of the middle ages wished to honour when they made a statue of the Virgin as a tabernacle where the Eucharist would be preserved. -During this season of Advent let us fix our eyes on the Virgin who is to give us Christ.