NeuroDivine

🎶 Choosing music when Advent and Christmas overlap is not just a logistical challenge—it’s a spiritual paradox. On the Fourth Sunday of Advent, the Church is still waiting, still holding its breath for the coming of Christ. Yet within hours, the liturgy shifts: the Gloria returns, carols resound, and the Feast of the Nativity bursts forth in joy.

For musicians, this tension is felt most keenly at the organ bench. Practising the great Christmas carols—Joy to the World, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing—can feel strangely out of place when the liturgy is still whispering O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The heart is tuned to longing, yet the hands must rehearse proclamation. It feels odd, and yet it must be done, because the Church’s song must be ready to carry the joy of Christmas night.

✨ Perhaps this difficulty is itself a gift. Advent reminds us that waiting is holy, that silence and restraint prepare the heart. Christmas reminds us that joy must be voiced, that the Incarnation deserves nothing less than song. To hold both together is to embody the mystery: Christ is both the One we await and the One already born among us.

So when the organist, cantor, or choir feels stretched between two repertoires, they are living the paradox of faith. The music chosen for Sunday honours the waiting; the music chosen for Christmas proclaims the arrival. And in the space between, even in the oddness of practising carols too soon, we glimpse the truth: salvation is both promise and presence, both not-yet and already-here.