Celebrating the Seasons. Robert Atwell
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Son of Man.’ Like lightning, like a conflagration, like a flood, the attraction exerted by the Son of Man will lay hold of all the whirling elements in the universe so as to reunite them or subject them to his body. ‘Wherever the body is, there will the eagles be gathered together.’
Such will be the consummation of the divine milieu.
As the gospel warns us, it would be vain to speculate as to the hour and the modalities of this formidable event. But we have to expect it.
Expectation – anxious, collective and operative expectation of an end of the world, that is to say of an issue for the world – that is perhaps the supreme Christian function and the most distinctive characteristic of our religion.
Tuesday after Advent 1
A Reading from a sermon of John Henry Newman
Year passes after year, silently; Christ’s coming is ever nearer than it was. O that, as he comes nearer earth, we may approach nearer heaven!
O my brethren, pray him to give you the heart to seek him in sincerity. Pray him to make you in earnest. You have one work only, to bear your cross after him. Resolve in his strength to do so. Resolve to be no longer beguiled by ‘shadows of religion’, by words, or by disputings, or by notions, or by high professions, or by excuses, or by the world’s promises or threats. Pray him to give you what Scripture calls ‘an honest and good heart’, or ‘a perfect heart’, and, without waiting, begin at once to obey him with the best heart you have. Any obedience is better than none, – any profession which is disjoined from obedience, is a mere pretence and deceit. Any religion which does not bring you nearer to God is of the world. You have to seek his face; obedience is the only way of seeking him. All your duties are obediences.
If you are to believe the truths he has revealed, to regulate yourselves by his precepts, to be frequent in his ordinances, to adhere to his Church and people, why is it, except because he has bid you? And to do what he bids is to obey him, and to obey him is to approach him. Every act of obedience is an approach, an approach to him who is not far off; though he seems so, but close behind this visible screen of things which hides him from us. He is behind this material framework; earth and sky are but a veil going between him and us; the day will come when he will rend that veil, and show himself to us. And then, according as we have waited for him, will he recompense us. If we have forgotten him, he will not know us; but ‘Blessed are those servants whom the Lord, when he cometh, shall find watching. He shall gird himself, and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants.’ May this be the portion of every one of us! It is hard to attain but it is woeful to fail.
Life is short; death is certain; and the world to come is everlasting.
Wednesday after Advent 1
A Reading from the Letter of Clement of Rome to the Church in Corinth
We should entreat the Creator of the universe with heartfelt prayer and supplication that the full sum of his elect, as it has been numbered throughout the world, may be preserved intact through his beloved child Jesus Christ. For through him he has called us out of darkness into light, from ignorance into the full knowledge of the glory of his name.
Teach us, Lord, to hope in that name which is the source and fount of all creation. Open the eyes of our hearts to know you, who alone are highest among the highest, forever holy among the holy. You bring to nothing the schemings of the proud, and frustrate the devices of the nations. You raise up the humble on high, and the lofty you cast down. Riches and poverty, death and life, are all in your hand; you alone are the discerner of every spirit, and the God of all flesh. Your eyes survey the depths and scrutinise our human achievements; you are the aid of those in danger, the Saviour of those that despair, the Creator and guardian of everything that has breath. By you the nations of the earth are increased; and from them you have chosen out such as love you through your dear child Jesus Christ, by whom you have taught us, made us holy and brought us to honour.
Grant us, Lord, we beseech you, your help and protection. Deliver the afflicted, pity the humble, raise up the fallen, reveal yourself to the needy, heal the sick, bring home your wandering people, feed the hungry, ransom the prisoners, support the weak, comfort the faint-hearted. Let all the nations of the earth know that you alone are God, that Jesus Christ is your child, and that we are your people and the sheep of your pasture.
Lord, you brought to light the eternal fabric of the universe, and created the world. From generation to generation you are faithful, righteous in judgement, glorious in might and majesty, wise in what you have created, prudent in what you have established. To look around us is to see your goodness everywhere; to trust in you is to know your loving kindness.
O merciful, O most compassionate, forgive us our sins and offences, our mistakes and our shortcomings. Do not dwell upon the sins of the sons and daughters who serve you, but rather make us clean with the cleansing of your truth. Direct our paths until we walk before you in holiness of heart, and our works are good and pleasing in your sight and in the sight of those who govern us. Yes, Lord, may your face shine upon us for our good; and so shall we be sheltered by your mighty hand, and saved from all wrongdoing by your out-stretched arm. Deliver us from all who hate us without reason; and to us and to all people grant peace and concord, as you did to our forebears when they called devoutly upon you in faith and truth.
Thursday after Advent 1
A Reading from The Spirit of Love by William Law
Nothing wills or works with God but the spirit of love, because nothing else works in God himself. The almighty brought forth all nature for this end only, that boundless love might have its infinity of height and depth to dwell and work in, and all the striving and working properties of nature are only to give essence and substance, life and strength, to the invisible hidden spirit of love, that it may come forth into outward activity and manifest its blessed powers, that creatures born in the strength, and out of the powers of nature, might communicate the spirit of love and goodness, give and receive mutual delight and joy to and from one another.
All below this state of love is a fall from the one life of God, and the only life in which the God of love can dwell. Partiality, self, mine, thine, etc., are tempers that can only belong to creatures that have lost the power, presence, and spirit of the universal Good. They can have no place in heaven, nor can be anywhere, but because heaven is lost. Think not, therefore, that the spirit of pure, universal love which is the one purity and perfection of heaven and all heavenly natures has been or can be carried too high or its absolute necessity too much asserted. For it admits of no degrees of higher or lower, and is not in being till it is absolutely pure and unmixed, no more than a line can be straight till it is absolutely free from all crookedness.
All the design of Christian redemption is to remove everything that is unheavenly, gross, dark, wrathful, and disordered from every part of this fallen world. And when you see earth and stones, storms and tempests, and every kind of evil, misery, and wickedness, you see that which Christ came into the world to remove, and not only to give a new birth to fallen man, but so to deliver all outward nature from its present vanity and evil and set it again in its first heavenly state. Now if you ask how came all things into this evil and vanity, it is because they have lost the blessed spirit of love which alone makes the happiness and perfection of every power of nature.
Friday after Advent 1
A Reading from a commentary on the psalms
by Augustine
‘All the trees of the forest will exult before the face of the Lord, for he has come, he has come to judge the earth.’ The Lord has come the first time, and he will come again. At his first coming, his own voice declared in the gospel: ‘Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man coming upon the clouds.’ What does he mean by ‘hereafter’? Does he not mean that the Lord will come at a future time when all the nations of the earth will be striking their breasts in grief’? Previously he came through his preachers, and he filled the whole world. Let us not resist