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Program of 2024 "Faith, Hope, Love!"

In all our works, it is important for me to connect today with the Advent events of the birth of Christ. This time we do so with texts that were written well over 2,000 years ago. In this year's Salzburg Advent Singing, the three divine virtues of faith, hope and love along with the Old Testament Songs of Love are included in our Advent reflections. For me, the texts from the Song of Solomone are among the most beautiful testimonies in world literature. This collection of secular love songs, in which there is no mention of God, is nevertheless assigned to divine revelation and miraculously points out that sexuality is also of divine origin.

"But now faith, hope and love remain, these three, but love is the greatest among them," Paul of Tarsus recognised already in the First Letter to the Corinthians. In connection with the songs and the three virtues, this year's Advent Singing becomes a story of two lovers whose togetherness experiences not only joy but also sorrow. However, their strong faith provides a foundation that can withstand the unexpected. Their faith is a pre-requisite for the hope that all the inexplicable is likely to make a deeper sense.

This deeper meaning leads to a divine love in which we are all secure. Love, this great, magical mystery in our existence, experiences its greatest miracle in the mystery of the birth of each child. This Advent, this love leads us to the birth of Christ, to the divine miracle of the Holy Night.

Hans Köhl, Overall Direction, Story, Program