Discovering that today's 'cross reference" Advent hymn was "let all mortal flesh keep silence" filled my heart with joy!  Set to the traditional french carol tune, Picardy, the Liturgy of St James translated by Percy Dearmer is just wonderful.  Eloquent poetry, profound theology and gloriously aching melody - what more could a girl wish for?!

The line "as the dark dissolves before you" is just amazing... not the sudden starkness of electric light, but a gentle spreading of the light, more akin to the dawning of a new day.  It also feels 'real'... in the darkness and shadows of real life, rarely does light come quickly; rather we discover that its edges become less distinct and, slowy, slowly, lightness, even brightness suffuses everything.  Darkness cowers just out of reach, lurking, waiting to roll in again like a fog - but the light will never give in, and one day the final vestiges of death, fear, sorrow, sin will be gone, dissolved into the light: for here surely is the real mystery, the real power - the light dissolves, so somehow contains, the darkness and in so doing transforms it!

Lots of recordings of this one, so I opted for this because it is sung in a cathedral and benefits from that aucoustic...