Advent

 

Welcome to Advent, a joyful time of year, shot through with the anticipation of celebrating Christ's birth at Christmas. But as we reflect on that, the first Advent, we're drawn to the second when Christ will come again in glorious majesty to judge the "quick and the dead" and the world by fire.

The second coming, a vindication of our faith, and with it the promise of evil's utter defeat. A source of hope, for sure, evil is utterly defeated and the faithful vindicated, but also trepidation. How will we measure up before the perfection of God when He returns?

Austin Farrer offers this:

ADVENT brings Christmas, judgement runs out into mercy.  For the God who saves us and the God who judges us is one God.  We are not, even, condemned by his severity and redeemed by his compassion; what judges us is what redeems us, the love of God.  What is it that will break our hearts on judgement day?  Is it not the vision, suddenly unrolled, of how he has loved the friends we have neglected, of how he has loved us, and we have not loved him in return; how, when we came (as now) before his altar, he gave us himself, and we gave him half—penitences, or resolutions too weak to commit our wills?  But while love thus judges us by being what it is, the same love redeems us by effecting what it does.  Love shares flesh and blood with us in this present world, that the eyes which look us through at last may find in us a better substance than our vanity.

ADVENT brings Christmas, judgement runs out into mercy.  For the God who saves us and the God who judges us is one God. Yes indeed.

God bless,

LSP

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