A Short Advent Sermon

 

You're perhaps staring in baffled, slack-jawed consternation as our country descends into banana republicdom, with all the risks therein. Or maybe you're wondering why Texas is wet and freezing, like Aberystwyth in July.

Whatever the case, here's something different, a sermon for the first Sunday of Advent in the form of the season's governing Collect:

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

And for all those who like to say the Divine Office from the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, and even for those who don't, here's a link. 

Say your prayers, kids, and sanctify the day. It's important.

God bless,

LSP

All Souls - Dies Irae

REST eternal grant unto them, O Lord: and let light perpetual shine upon them. Ps. 65. Thou, O Lord, art praise in Sion, and unto thee shall the vow be performed in Jerusalem: thou that hearest the prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come. REST eternal grant unto them, O Lord: and let light perpetual shine upon them.

Who warned you from the wrath which is to come? With that in mind, today we pray especially for the souls of the faithful departed: 

Absolve, O Lord, the souls of all the faithful departed from all the chains of their sins. That by the succour of thy grace they may be found worthy to escape the avenging judgement. And enjoy the bliss of everlasting life.

Day of wrath, and doom impending,

David's word with Sibyl's blending:

Heaven and earth in ashes ending!

O what fear man's bosom rendeth,

When from heaven the Judge descendeth,

On whose sentence all dependeth!

A day of wrath, but so too:

Through the sinful woman shriven;

Through the dying thief forgiven;

Thou to me a hope hast given.

In that hope, may the souls of thy servants and handmaidens, being delivered from all their sins, be made partakers of thy heavenly redemption. 

May they rest in peace.

DFTR,

LSP