Ambrose, the Children, and Advent
A few days back I was flipping through “First Person Singular: Reflections on Worship, Liturgy, and Children” by Carl Schalk. It is is a smallish volume of less than a hundred pages with brief reflections on various topics related to children in the life of the church.
Schalk had a reflection that was particularly relevant to the Advent season based on Ambrose, the author of the Hymn of the Day for this First Sunday in Advent – “Savior of the Nations, Come” (LSB 332)
As the story goes, Ambrose (340-397), the great Bishop of Milan, was having trouble with the Arians, a heretical sect which denied Christ’s divinity. When the Empress Justina, who favored the Arians, tried to get Ambrose to open one of the churches–the Basilica Portina–for her adherents, Ambrose adamantly refused. Fearing reprisal from the Empress, Ambrose gathered the faithful in the basilica, singing psalms and hymns to buoy their spirits in this time of persecution. When the soldiers sent by the Empress arrived at the basilica, so tremendous was the effect of the people’s song that the soldiers are said to have joined in the singing. The Empress finally was forced to abandon her plans.
St. Augustine, one of Ambrose’s converts–who as a young man was present with his mother at the Basilica Portina–wrote some years later in his Confession about the moving experience and how the singing had made a profound impression on him. (p. 17)
Schalk next asks a question that propels this historical situation to our own day: “But where were the children?” His conclusion, based on Augustine and that society’s lack of child care centers, is that the children, with the whole family, were at the Basilica singing the strong hymns of Ambrose. The whole church family–young and old–were spiritually nurtured and grew by these hymns.
His encouragement to the church today is to continue (or reinstate, as the case may be) the practice of teaching children the strong and sturdy hymns of the faith — not “Twinkie Tunes with Ding Dong Theology” (title of another reflection). These hymns can be formative in the faith development of the children.
Why not start with Ambrose’s Advent hymn?
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