In the Advent carol, Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming (an English translation of a 16th and early 17th century German carol discussed in various Advent posts this year), we sing, "It came, a floweret bright, amid the cold of winter, When half spent was the night." The flower blooming in the night is a sign of life and beauty, which brings hope in the barrenness of winter.
In an earlier post, I wrote about the carol's references to Isaiah's prophecies in Isaiah 11:1 ("There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots") and Isaiah 35:1-2 ("The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God."). Another prophecy about the desert, read during Advent, is Isaiah 40:3-5: "A voice cries: 'In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.'"
In the carol, the barrenness of a Western European winter is substituted for the barrenness of the Middle Eastern desert. Jesus is seen as the rose that blooms "amid the winter cold" in the darkness of midnight, referencing Isaiah's prophecies that speak of a branch or crocus blossoming in the wilderness. The carol substituted an image from its own time and place for the desert wilderness described by Isaiah.
In Isaiah's prophecy, the desert is a picture of exile from the promised land for people awaiting the Messiah. In the carol, the cold winter night is a similar picture of a barren land, awaiting the birth of Jesus at Christmas.
Isaiah asked Israel to prepare in the desert for the coming of the Messiah, drawing close to God like the people of the Exodus. St. John the Baptist sought to live that kind of detachment from earthly things, turning toward God in the wilderness, as the prophet Elijah also had done. Hermits in the desert seek to live in detachment from the things of this world as a means of repentance, abandoning their sins in order to draw closer to God in the innermost depths of their hearts.
The early hermits on Mt. Carmel similarly sought to live the spirituality of the desert in order to grow closer to God. P. Marie-Eugene, O.C.D., in his book I Want to See God, wrote about how we live the spirituality of the desert in our own time and state of life. Speaking of St. Teresa of Avila's adapting the charism of the early hermits of Mt. Carmel to her own time and place by forming cloistered Carmelite convents, Père Marie-Eugene comments that we too must adapt that spirituality to our own era and to our own state of life.
That is something like what the carol does in substituting a cold December night for the desert in its symbolism, in substituting a rose for a shoot sprouting in the desert. In the austerity of a cold winter night, we draw near to the Christ child, the shoot growing from the root of Jesse in that bare environment where the leaves of the trees and the greenery of summer have been lost.
In a footnote to Chapter VI about "Teresian Asceticism", Père Marie-Eugene explained, "Saint Teresa was able to revive the primitive spirit of Carmel in the sixteenth century only by creating a form of eremitic life adapted to the customs and the needs of her time." He explained that some things must change, and others are "immutable because inseparable from the very spirit." Only sanctity can mould that into "a living and authentic form the spirit", finding a present day form of the detachment of the desert without losing what is essential and unchangeable in it.
The detachment that Isaiah had in mind is that sort of turning toward God and toward spiritual things, seeking to know God and do His will.
It is then that we may notice the roses in the snow, or the desert flower blooming from a seemingly dead root. That rose, Christ born in the manger, is the hope of life in a barren land. Isaiah's prophecy is one of hope for the coming of the Lord, for a brighter day that He will bring. "The desert shall rejoice and blossom . . . and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, the majesty of our God."
Photo credit: Moosey, from Moosey's Country Garden. Used with permission.