Dear All,
Already a week of Advent has passed – Lent usually drags a bit on me but Advent – never! It always seems to spin by hardly allowing time for real reflection on all the richness. I hope that you are finding it rich & renewing. I came across a prayer this week adapted from one by Cardinal Newman. I hope you like it. Also a reflection on the word, ‘Come’ which is so much used in Advent. The other reading reminds us of the wonder & sense of awe that has an important place in this season.
Our blessing this week is a gaelic one, ‘Deep Peace’ by Libera.
It comes with our love
Hope we may see some of you on the zoomed reflection tomorrow evening.
Every year, my God,
the church celebrates the holy season of Advent.
Every year we pray those beautiful prayers
of longing & waiting,
and sing those lovely songs of hope & promise.
Every year we roll up
our needs & yearnings & faithful expectations
into one word: ‘Come!’
And yet, what a strange prayer this is!
After all you have already come
and pitched your tent among us.
You have already shared our life with its little joys,
its long days of tedious routine, its bitter end.
Could we invite you to anything more than this
with our ‘Come’?
Could you approach any nearer than you did
when you became the ‘Son of Man’,
when you adopted our ordinary little ways so thoroughly
that it is almost impossible to distinguish you
from other human beings?
In spite of all this we pray: ‘Come’.
And this word comes from the bottom of our hearts
as it did long ago
from the hearts of our forefathers,
the kings & prophets
who saw your day still far off in the distance,
and fervently blessed your coming.
Indeed, your coming is promised
in the very first pages of Holy Scripture.
and yet on the last page, there still stands the prayer:
‘Come Lord Jesus’.
Karl Rahner
“No season of the year is more filled with wonder than that of Advent and Christmas. The story turns our understanding of the world upside down. From the stunning revelation that our creator God plans to be born into history as the son of an unwed peasant, until Jesus arrives in the tiny town of Bethlehem and is surrounded by the lowly shepherds, we are inspired.
Yet we live in an awe-deprived world and are so familiar with the story that its wonder and glory often elude us”
Christine Sine