Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas

This collection, born of obvious passion and graced with superb writing, is a welcome even necessary addition to the glutted holiday bookshelves. -- Publishers Weekly  (starred review)

Though Christians the world over make yearly preparations for Lent, there’s a conspicuous lack of good books for that other great spiritual season: Advent. All the same, this four-week period leading up to Christmas is making a comeback as growing numbers reject shopping-mall frenzy and examine the deeper meaning of the season.

Ecumenical in scope, these fifty devotions invite the reader to contemplate the great themes of Christmas and the significance that the coming of Jesus has for each of us – not only during Advent, but every day. Whether dipped into at leisure or used on a daily basis, Watch for the Light gives the phrase “holiday preparations” new depth and meaning.

Includes contributions by these and other writers:

• C. S. Lewis, Madeleine L’Engle, Thomas Merton, and Philip Yancey
• Dorothy Day, Henri Nouwen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero, and Edith Stein
• Martin Luther, Meister Eckhart, Eberhard Arnold, and Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt
• T. S. Eliot, John Donne, and Sylvia Plath
• Karl Barth, Will Willimon, Jürgen Moltmann, and J. B. Phillips
• Kathleen Norris, Brennan Manning, and Evelyn Underhill
• Annie Dillard, St. Thomas Aquinas, and Gerard Manley Hopkins
• Romano Guardini, St. John Chrysostom, and Giovanni Papini
• Jane Kenyon, Friedrich Wilhelm Foerster, Isaac Penington, and Alfred Delp

It's hard to go wrong with 40 essays and poems from theological writers such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, Madeleine L'Engle, Martin Luther, Kathleen Norris, Henri Nouwen, Philip Yancey, Karl Barth and Síren Kierkegaard. These are not frivolous, feel-good Advent readings; they are deep, sometimes jarring reflections, many with a strong orientation toward social justice (other authors include liberationists Leonardo Boff, Gustavo Guti‚rrez and Oscar Romero). "The love that descended to Bethlehem is not the easy sympathy of an avuncular God, but a burning fire whose light chases away every shadow, floods every corner, and turns midnight into noon," explain the editors. This collection, born of obvious passion and graced with superb writing, is a welcome even necessary addition to the glutted holiday bookshelves.

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