Through the fall semester of 2024, as part of my studies at Yale Divinity School, I participated in a course titled ‘Art and Ritual at Mount Sinai.’ Taught by two well-respected scholars of Byzantine art and architecture, Robert S Nelson and Vasileios Marinis, the class examined the extraordinary site that is Saint Catherine’s Monastery, nestled in the endless mountains of the southern Sinai Peninsula of Egypt. As part of the class, I traveled to Saint Catherine’s in January of 2025 to spend the better part of a week staying at the monastery guesthouse. My colleagues and I were privileged to attend worship at the monastery’s basilica church, examine priceless manuscripts and icons, and experience the geography of the Sinai mountains. Our visit fell right over the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord after the Julian calendar, and it was an exceptional experience to hike to the summit of Mount Sinai on Christmas Eve. Dramatic experiences of light, the abrasive high winds on the red-brown peaks, and a heart and mind saturated with the tangible experience of a holy place, all in the context of the imminent birth of Christ, infused that verse from the Advent ‘O Antiphons’ with a new kind of meaning:
O come, O come, thou Lord of Might
Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai’s height,
In ancient times didst give the