Kavanagh’s poem looks to Advent for a sort of poetic and spiritual rebirth, a chance to reacquaint ourselves with the “newness that was in every stale thing.”

“Belfast” presents itself as a family photo album: Violence may intrude, but it doesn’t crowd out the Christmas pictures.

What this quintessential stage musical needed, apparently, was a thoroughgoing cinematic makeover.

Wendell Berry could be described by many labels. More than anything else, he has been a voice of practical reason and concise cultural commentary in his more than 80 books published over six decades.

“There’s a logic that is embedded in the melodies of these tunes that helps the congregation remember them,” Maestro Colin Britt explains on the latest episode of “Hark!”

You might call it the Walmart of hymnals. It doesn’t drill down into any one category. It doesn’t specialize. But it covers most of the bases that most parishes and parishioners would expect.