Featured: Mary Consoles Eve
Five times a year, I share my writing in Cultivating, a lovely publication offered by Cultivating Oaks Press. Each edition is an absolute feast for the soul. Here are the opening few paragraphs of my reflection on a beloved Advent painting for the Christmastide 2025 edition about Making Room to Receive. You can read the full version of my article exclusively in the online edition. While you’re there, I hope you will enjoy the thoughtful, deep work of my fellow Cultivators. They are kind, wise, and stay close to Jesus’s side, and they have beautiful words to offer. Enjoy!
On the final Saturday of the liturgical year, just before Ordinary Time gives way to Advent, I sit in the chair by the window and watch the last few leaves on our neighbor’s elm tree tremble in the wind as the sun dips behind the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. I breathe a relieved exhale. Even the dusky purple of the evening sky heralds the arrival of the season of Advent, the liturgical calendar catching up to the groan that has echoed in my heart in a wearying year: “Come, Lord Jesus.”
Wrapped in a shawl against the late November chill, I pad down our creaky stairs toward the dining room, lighting the lamps as I go. As I have done on the eve of a decade’s-worth of Advents, I gather the candle sticks with rivulets of white wax dried to the sides and pooling at the base, whispering a prayer of thanks for the many minutes of conversation and connection held in their warm glow. I remove the bowl of pears from the center of the table and the copper platter of the leaf treasures my four children have collected over these crisp, cool fall days. I carefully fold the festive table runner, careful to trap the many remaining crumbs from snacks and feasts.
I remove the white tapers burned down to stubs and scrape away the remaining wax. I replace them with fresh candles in a deep plum hue, trimming the wicks in preparation for the morning meal. I smooth a purple runner down the center of the table and arrange the candle sticks along the length of it. In the center, I place our Advent wreath, candles testifying to the persistence of hope, peace, joy, and love, and the sure presence of Christ in our waiting and longing.
Once the table is set, I take down the frame that hangs on the wall next to our hutch. I remove the painting with its bright green and yellow strokes, a reminder of Ordinary Time’s testimony of God’s faithful work to bring life and growth in and through His Church. In its place, I insert a print of one of my most beloved paintings. In the painting are two women standing in a garden. One woman, with long tresses covering her nakedness and shame, an apple clutched in her hand, and a snake coiled around her ankles, blushes with downcast face. She barely dares to lift her eyes toward her outstretched hand, which is grasped by a young woman with a gentle smile. This woman reaches to lift the face of the deceived one, resting their joined hands on her pregnant belly as her heel crushes the head of the snake.[1]