The Vigil: Keeping Watch in the Season of Christ's Coming

"The Vigil" is a beautiful companion for anyone wanting to enter more deeply into the spirit of Advent and Christmastime. Poignant personal experiences, eloquently related, illustrate the author's profound insights into the Scriptural themes of the season. Being a musician as well as a theologian, she weaves in many of the Christmas carols, exploring their texts, background and musical styles. She writes simply and reverently on such themes as promise, preparation, rejoicing, wonder, peace and light. This is a book to be savored and read more than once.

I received this book four years ago and I have read it for every Advent/Christmas/Epiphany since. Though the circumstances of myself and those I love have changed every year, this book has continued to help me find a means of entering these seasons with faith. The author has stretched my understandings, brought me to tears with her very human approach to wonders of faith, and given me space from the dizzy commercial aspects of the season. I would recommend it to any Christian confronting the beginning of the liturgical year.