ADVENT AND THE LONGING OF OUR HEARTS

We are almost into the season of Advent, the beginning of the Christian year. At All Saints' Benhilton the church has been prepared, and we look forward to this First Sunday of Advent when, as well as the blessing of the Advent Wreath and the lighting of the first Advent Candle at Mass, we will gather again at 4.00 p.m. for a service of choral anthems, hymns and Scripture readings to launch us into this season.

 

In his Devotions for Advent, Matthew Woodley captures a really crucial dimension of the Church's Advent season:

Sadly, our culture often fosters a complacent, blasé, smug approach to Christianity. In the words of C. S. Lewis, "We are far too easily pleased." We're happy to numb and freeze our restless ache for a better world.

Advent is the season of the church year that ignites that longing in our hearts. Before we rush into "Happy Holidays," we pause and let longing rise up within us. Throughout Advent we catch glimpses of a better world.

And as we catch glimpses of this Messiah-healed world, we long for its coming now. All of the best Advent hymns capture this spirit of groaning and longing for Messiah's better world. When we sing "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," with its dark, unresolved melody, it cracks our hearts open with longing's wound. And yet, we know Messiah has come, even as we wait for him to come again. Advent is a deliciously painful mix of joy and anguish.

This Advent-like longing is at the heart of Christian spirituality. Augustine's Latin phrase desiderium sinus cordis-"yearning makes the heart grow deep"-became a central theme in his pilgrimage on earth. Augustine cried out, "Give me one who yearns; . . . give me one far away in this desert, who is thirsty and sighs for the spring of the Eternal country. Give me that sort of man: he knows what I mean."

C. S. Lewis claimed that in this life the Advent-like stab of longing serves as a spiritual homing device, placed deep in our heart by God to lead us back to him. Thus, as Psyche realizes in Till We Have Faces, "It almost hurt me . . . like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home. . . . The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing . . . to find the place where all the beauty came from. . . . The longing for home."

Advent trains us to ache again. Of all the seasons of the church year, Advent is the time to acknowledge, feel, and even embrace the joyful anguish of longing for Messiah's birth and the world's rebirth. So we sing our aching songs while we light candles and festoon the church with greenery. That is Advent longing, and we couldn't imagine it any other way.

All Saints' Benhilton Lessons & Carols

 

O Emmanuel

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O Rex

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O Adonai

 

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O Sapientia

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The Advent 'O Antiphons'.

In the Church's traditional cycle of prayer, Evening Prayer, also called Vespers, always includes the great song of Mary known as the Magnificat (luke 1:46-55). This song is preceded and followed by a short verse or "antiphon" that links it to the feast of the day or the season of the year. In the last seven days of Advent (December 17-24), the Magnificat antiphons are very special. Each begins with the exclamation "O" and ends with a plea for the Messiah to come. As Christmas approaches the cry becomes increasingly urgent.

These "O Antiphons" were composed in the seventh or eighth century when monks put together some of the key Old Testament texts and phrases looking forward to our salvation. They form a rich, interlocking mosaic of Scriptural images; in the Middle Ages the custom grew of ringing the great bells of the church each evening as they were being sung.

A particularly fascinating feature of the O Antiphons is that the first letter of each invocation, when read backwards, forms an acrostic in Latin: the first letters of Sapientia, Adonai, Radix, Clavis, Oriens, Rex, and Emmanuel in reverse form the Latin words: ERO CRAS. These are understood as the words of Jesus, responding to his people's plea, saying "Tomorrow I will be there."

 

Judgment Runs 0ut Into Mercy - Austin Farrer

Austin Farrer (1904-1968), the son of a Baptist minister, was ordained in the Church of England and served as Dean of Magdalene College, Oxford, and Warden of Keble College. He was widely acclaimed as a preacher, poet, philosopher, biblical scholar and spiritual guide. This quote comes from The Crown of the Year : Weekly Paragraphs for the Holy Sacrament, Darce Press, London, 1952.

Our journey sets out from God in our creation, and returns to God at the final judgement.  As the bird rises from the earth to fly, and must some time return to the earth from which it rose; so God sends us forth to fly, and we must fall back into the hands of God at last.  But God does not wait for the  failure of our power and the expiry of our days to drop us back into his lap.  He goes himself to meet us and everywhere confronts us.  Where is the countenance which we must finally look in the eyes, and not be able to turn away our head?  It smiles up at Mary from the cradle, it calls Peter from the nets, it looks on him with grief when he has denied his master.  

Our judge meets us at every step of our way, with forgiveness on his lips and succour in his hands.  He offers us these things while there is yet time.  Every day opportunity shortens, our scope for learning our Redeemer's love is narrowed by twenty-four hours, and we come nearer to the end of our journey, when we shall fall into the hands of the living God, and touch the heart of the devouring fire. 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.

Some thoughts to get you started this Advent

 

OUR SOWING TIME

Our short lives on earth are sowing time. If there were no resurrection of the dead, everything we live on earth would come to nothing. How can we believe in a God who loves us unconditionally if all the joys and pains of our lives are in vain, vanishing in the earth with our mortal flesh and bones? Because God loves us unconditionally, from eternity to eternity, God cannot allow our bodies - the same as that in which Jesus, his Son and our Saviour, appeared to us - to be lost in final destruction.

No, life on earth is the time when the seeds of the risen body are planted. Paul says: “What is sown is perishable, but what is raised is imperishable; what is sown is contemptible but what is raised is glorious; what is sown is weak, but what is raised is powerful; what is sown is a natural body, and what is raised is a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:42-44). This wonderful knowledge that nothing we live in our bodies is lived in vain holds a call for us to live every moment as a seed of eternity.

The wonderful knowledge, that nothing we live in our body is lived in vain, holds a call for us to live every moment as a seed of eternity.

- Henri Nouwen (Bread for the Journey, Harper San Francisco.)

ADVENT JOINS MEMORY AND HOPE

Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart’s memory so that it can discern the star of hope . . . It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope.

- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger 1986 (Pope Benedict XVI) - Seek That Which Is Above (Ignatius Press)

THE GRAND MIRACLE

The Christian story is precisely the story of one grand miracle, the Christian assertion being that what is beyond all space and time, what is uncreated, eternal, came into nature, into human nature, descended into his own universe, and rose again, bringing nature up with him. It is precisely one great miracle. If you take that away there is nothing specifically Christian left.

- C.S. Lewis, “The Grand Miracle” - God in the Dock

A two minute refresher on Advent . . .

This Coming Sunday - A Service of Advent Music and Readings

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A Slightly Awkward Start to Advent

 

Welcome home . . . and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I write that, of course, because today is the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the new Church year. 

WE HAVE A HEAD START!

Have you noticed how many people are saying that they can’t wait to put the disastrous year 2020 behind them? Well, there is a sense in which you and I get to do just that, ahead of everyone else. What I mean is that although it is still 2020 according to the secular world, today we begin the 2021 Church year!

The fact that we have our own starting date for the new year emphasises a special truth. It’s a bit like the way my passport says that I am a citizen of Australia, but the reality is quite different. Writing to the small Church community in the Roman colony of Philippi, (and to all of us who have been baptised) S. Paul says:

‘our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.’ (Philippians 3:20)

On top of that, the writer to the Hebrews says,

‘Here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come.’ (Hebrews 13:14)

These are powerful words. They remind us that our life in this world is not all there is, and our real citizenship in whatever country whose passport we carry is totally secondary to our true identity! 

PILGRIMS ON A JOURNEY

The early Christians in the hostile Roman Empire understood that, as we see in the second or third century Letter to Diognetus, in which a Christian, Mathetes, writes to a man of considerable rank:

‘Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life . . . With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign. 

‘And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labour under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country . . . They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven.’ 

Or, as S. John Vianney, the Curé d’Ars, put it in 19^th century France, 

‘Our home is heaven. On earth we are like travellers staying in a hotel. When one is away, one is always thinking of going home.’

During this season of Advent we experience again the reality of being a ‘pilgrim people’ travelling home TOGETHER. In other words, we are not a bunch of rugged individuals who just happen to be on the same path and can’t avoid bumping into each other from time to time. We are a real community of faith and love on pilgrimage together, supporting one another. During Advent we are on pilgrimage to Bethlehem. But we are also on pilgrimage to our true home, and part of that journey is to reflect on the sobering themes of judgment and mortality, while acknowledging - as we dare to do every day at Mass - that because God became Man, both heaven AND EARTH are absolutely crammed full of his glory.

THIS MORNING - UNDERSTATED AND SUBTLE

For me, personally, this morning felt really awkward. For nearly all my life I have experienced the start of the Church year on the First Sunday of Advent being overwhelmed by Charles Wesley’s amazing hymn, ‘Lo, he comes with clouds descending . . .’, focusing straight away - as do the Scripture readings, not so much on the coming of Jesus to Bethlehem, but on his coming in glory at the end of the age.

This morning, however, the last Sunday of this present ‘lockdown’, I celebrated alone at the High Altar. In a strange quietness I blessed the Advent wreath and lit its first candle before getting on with the Mass. I must confess that in my mind I was thinking how it was happening like this in so many parishes around the world, in contrast to the usual burst of triumph, and the children swarming around the Advent wreath for its particular ceremonies.

Of course, I regained my composure when at the end of Mass I was able to enthrone the Blessed Sacrament on the Nave Altar as the focus for the personal and private prayer of those who would come and go throughout the morning.

NEXT SUNDAY - BACK TO MASS!

But the lockdown will finish at the end of Wednesday this week. Praise the Lord! That doesn’t mean a FULL restoration of worship. But it does mean that Holy Mass can be celebrated in the way we did from the beginning of July until the end of October . . . socially distanced, sanitised hands, face coverings, special precautions in the giving of Holy Communion, no congregational singing, and no morning tea at the end. That all looks a bit draconian, doesn’t it. But it worked before, to the glory of God and for the blessing of his people, and it will work again! The choir will sing anthems during the preparation of the altar (half way through Mass) as well as while Holy Communion is being given. Also, next Sunday’s Mass will include the lighting of the second candle on the Advent wreath.

It does seem as if the Government is wanting some of the things we associate with Christmas to be able to happen, so next week (i.e. the PCC having met this coming Wednesday night) I will announce the actual mechanics of obtaining (free) tickets for our Christmas Eve services. Remember, tickets will be FREE, but in order to ensure the safety of all, ADMISSION WIll BE BY TICKET ONLY. I’m sure everybody understands why this is important, and that it is much to be preferred than to cancel Christmas services. However, I would like to hear from any who do not feel comfortable coming out to Christmas Mass this year, but who still wish to receive their Christmas Communion. I will make arrangements to bring Holy Communion to you at home.

So, ‘Mass with a Congregation’ will resume on Thursday 3rd December, at 10 a.m. Then, as usual, Friday (7.30 a.m.) and Saturday (10 a.m.), leading into a wonderful celebration next Sunday, for the Second Sunday of Advent (8.00 a.m. and 9.30 a.m.)

PREPARING WITH EXPECTANCY FOR THE COMING OF JESUS!

The custom of lighting candles on the Advent wreath reminds us of God promising right from the time of our original rebellion, that one day he would conquer evil - you remember, through the seed of the woman crushing the serpent's head (Genesis 3:15) - and restore the relationship of love for which he created the human family in the first place.

The popular service of Nine Lessons and Carols, with its selection of readings moving progressively through the Old Testament - the Jewish Scriptures - reminds us of God’s long and patient preparation in the sludge of real human history for the coming of Jesus. In fact, it has been said that the theme of the Old Testament is ‘waiting for God’.

So, during the season of Advent, at the daily Mass, the Church has us read bits of the Old Testament to do with God’s promise to intervene human history so as to bring about – as we heard last Sunday - a kingdom of justice, love and peace. Our prayers are uttered in the language of the Old Testament, expressing that deep longing for the age to come that was reaching a climax in Jewish culture by the 1st century AD..

Even though the first coming of Jesus has already taken place, the Church encourages us to put ourselves spiritually into that period of expectant waiting for him to come. We identify ourselves with the long flow of history through which Jesus entered our world, recognising the light of God shining through the Patriarchs, the Prophets, John the Baptist, and Our Lady Mary, who are the high points of his revelation. During Advent we wait expectantly for the birth of Jesus at Christmas, along with those who two thousand years ago longed for his coming. It is good for us to be touched with the joy of that expectant waiting.

But, as we have noted, the Church mostly wants us to await - just as expectantly - that final day when Jesus will return in glory. And as it was important for people to be prepared for his first coming at Bethlehem, so we are encouraged in the New Testament to be no less prepared for his ‘second coming’.

But we have a problem!

So many times over the last 2000 years people have announced, ‘The end is nigh,’ and they have turned out to be wrong! (Remember how Jesus himself said that would happen. He warned of the futility of trying to calculate or predict the End - Matthew 24:36!) The sad reality is that partly as a reaction to extreme sects who have claimed to know exaclty when the End will come, modern Christians tend no longer to be ‘expectant’ about the second coming of Jesus. So, our faith has shrunk and become passive - a shrugging of the shoulders, the idea that he just might come one day  - but we don't live as if we really think there's a possibility of that happening in our lifetime!

If we really love the Lord, and his love and power are real to us, we will have an expectancy in our hearts, an anticipation born of faith. This is not just a ‘cheery optimism.’ It has to do with a deep day to day growth into his love. 

Most Sundays at Mass, in the words of the Nicene Creed, we profess our belief that 

 

‘He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.’

We used to finish by saying that 

‘we look for the resurrection of the dead.’ 

But because the original language has in it the idea of ‘looking ahead with expectancy’, the latest (2010) translation has sought to convey that more adequately in English. I don’t know about you, but I now have a real sense of excitement in my heart as the Creed comes to its close with the words:

‘I LOOK FORWARD TO the resurrection of the dead  and the life of the world to come.’

OUR ADVENT RENEWAL

Part of our Advent spiritual renewal this year ought to be recapturing that sense of expectancy if we feel we have lost it. So, let’s make sure that our walk with God is in good shape. 

Let’s examine our hearts to see where we’ve become slack. Let’s open them up to the love of the Lord again, and possibly use the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Let’s also ask ourselves if we are growing in our ability to relate to others - especially in the Church family, and if our shared lives are beginning to reflect the love and reconciliation at the heart of the Gospel.

May we all be renewed in the love and joy of the Gospel on our Advent pilgrimage together.

What is Advent all about?

Advent and Christmas at All Saints' Benhilton

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Father Stanton - an Advent sermon

Father Arthur Stanton was a leader of the Catholic Revival in the Church of England, an evangelical catholic preacher who drew large crowds, and for 50 years he was a curate at St Alban's Holborn, London. He died at the age of 74 in 1913. Go HERE for his life's story. This is a sermon he preached at the start of Advent 1910, at St Alban's.

Now it is high time to awake out of sleep." - Rom. xiii. 11. 

These are S. Paul's words to the Romans, but is there any exhortation at this time more needed than that? I beseech you, one and all, "Owe no man anything." Pay all your debts. Be just. The man who owes money and has not paid commits an injustice. I wish the parsons in the West End would preach about this. A good many shops in the West End are being ruined simply because the people never pay their debts, and owe thousands. Here is practical Christianity: "Owe no man anything," S. Paul says - but there is one debt - "Love one another."

And again I say, isn't that exactly what we want? All round about in the world of politics everybody is abusing the opposite party, setting one political party against the other. You read the newspapers on both sides, and see. "Owe no man anything, but to love one another." O Christian men and women in the middle of all this strife and turmoil, here is your motto for this December, "Owe no man anything, but to love one another." Could there be a better Advent message to us all than this?

Being Advent, we are bound to look into the state of our spiritual life. We are bound to judge ourselves lest we be judged of God. Do you, dear brethren, all of you take stock of what your spiritual life is, and ask yourselves, Have I discharged all my debts? How can I give Christmas presents to anybody if I owe money? Take stock of yourselves about love. How can you pay that debt? Oh, it is a beautiful text! " Owe no man anything, but to love one another." Have you discharged your debt of love? Now is the time. There is plenty of opportunity. When other men are going about heaping on one another political abuse and poison, you go about with Evangelical grace.

Then the Apostle goes on to say, "It is high time to awake out of sleep." Now is the time - at this moment - for the practical Christianity of today. There are some people who tell us they want to go back to the immaculate Early Church. That is rather nonsense. You would not be a man in swaddling clothes? - Why, then, do you want the Church today to be in the clothes of its infancy? I know there are many difficulties in the Church today, and so there were then. Many then denied the Lord who bought them, and counted the Blood of the Covenant wherewith they were sprinkled, unholy. There are troubles in the Church of England, I know. We have our troubles - but we live in the twentieth century. I love Mediaevalism - I think it is beautiful, but we could not go back to that. Where there is life there is progress, development. We never can be mediaeval again. No, let us be true Christians now, in the century in which we live. Now, let us awake.

Some of us, dear brethren, are sound asleep. We have no sense of any spiritual awakening. Perhaps we have received our religion from others, and taken it for granted, but we cannot feel within ourselves that we are wedded to Christ and lhs Cross. We have no "experiences." I remember a clergyman who was older than myself saying to me once, "Stanton, Stanton! What on earth do these people mean by talking of the spiritual life?" And that was thirty years ago.

There are some of us so fast asleep that we do not know what is meant by the spiritual awakening. There is no vision of that which is beyond. There is no looking forward to the hereafter. We go through our religion in a way, but what is it to us? We are sound asleep. And today I say: "Awake! Awake! Begin." "O quicken Thou me according to Thy word." (Ps. cxix. 25). For goodness' sake, don't be asleep. "It is high time to awake out of sleep."

Then, again, there are some of us who are falling off fast. We know it. We feel it within us. We are dropping off to sleep spiritually; that is, there was a time when we prayed, but now we say prayers as a matter of course, but never pray. We come and sing hymns. We like the music of the hymns, but there is no melody in our soul. Then, again, we go to Communion - we have received the Sacrament on the tongue, but the presence of the Saviour is not realised in the soul. There was a time when we used to creep to church, put our hands before our face and think of our sins, and tell the Master, and it may have been that some tears came into our eyes and trickled through our fingers. It does not happen now. I know some of us still go to Confession. We used to feel that we kissed the wounded Feet. But now it has become a sort of form; and we ask ourselves, "Well, what good does it do us?" We might as well ask ourselves, "What good does Holy Communion do us?"  "What good do our prayers do us?" We are falling off.

And the worst of it is, dear brethren, as you know perfectly well, other people, when we are so sleepy, stumble over us. We lie in the way, and they stumble and fall over us. The unbeliever says, "I told you so. It was all nonsense, and you never found it out." The worldly man says, "My dear fellow, I told you it would never pay. It cannot work." And the cynic says, "Of course, now you have got older and wiser, my friend, you won't believe it." They stumble over us. Sloth is a deadly sin. It is a sin within the sanctuary. Oh, sloth is the canker of the sanctuary. Do not let us forget the truth that the only people who can crucify the Lord afresh, and put the dear Master to open shame are those who have known and have loved him, and have deserted him. Is it nothing to us to remember that Jesus Christ was deserted of all? Oh! Sloth and slumber in religion is a deadly sin. Awake! Come back! Awake!

Again, there is the third point, which is this: some of us are somnambulists. Have you ever seen a somnambulist? It is a curious state. They are alive, yet not alive. They seem to know things in a way, and they do not know them. They never have any remembrance in the morning of what they have done. Well, so it is with spiritual people - with some of us - we are somnambulists. We say our prayers, and we do not know what we say. You have come to church to night, and if asked "Why?" you might say, "Well, I really hardly know - but I thought I would." And if I ask: "Do you feel the movement of the service? Does your soul go out of you to something higher you would say: "What on earth is the fellow talking about?" We can go to our prayers, to our Communions, and come away, and hardly know we have been. Did you say your prayers this morning? And you answer, "I do not know - I am not sure." "When did you make your last Communion?" "Well, I think it must have been about a couple of months ago." Why, we are walking in our sleep - somnambulists in grace. We go through the form, but we are lost. The life and the music of the Gospel does not sound, and the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ does not build up the soul. And yet, after all, you are what you would call a "good Churchman." Oh, how many feel this! I know, when I speak to you, there are many here who feel this deeply. We think and walk in our sleep, knowing it is high time to awake out of sleep. My brethren, I say the world is wide awake. Look at this political crisis, they call it. Why here, there, and everywhere, the political world is awake. I saw on the placards today, "Working men, awake and claim your rights"; "Women revert to war." And I say to us Christians, Awake! It is high time. We are citizens of heaven. Let us claim our right to eternal citizenship. We are citizens of the world to come. Awake, women! Revert to war - war against sin, the world, the flesh and the devil; war against the injustices and inequalities you see round about you. War against everything that is bad. Oh, ever since the Blessed Mary brought Christ into the world should women carry salvation in their arms. You and I, who were created by God, and redeemed by God, it is not for us to be asleep. It is high time to awake out of sleep.

Now, just a few reasons why it is high time to awake out of sleep. Because of the coming of the Lord. The Lord shall come with all his saints. We look forward to the coming of the Lord. Christians are ever like that; they stand waiting with their loins girt about, and their lamps burning. And do you say that the Lord delays his coming, and that a thousand years have past, and he has not come? Stand back and look out into eternity. Why do you talk like that, you who live under the Kingdom of God? What is a thousand years before the great range of eternity? It is but as a moment. It is as nothing. Just as this world is to an atom of space, so is a thousand years before the eternal years. Oh, he will come. On the Mount of Transfiguration, the Disciples fell asleep; when they awoke they saw, Jesus in all his glory. Awake! It is high time to awake, to see the Master in all His glory, "As seeing Him who is invisible" (Heb. xi. 27). If you are awake, you shall see the glory transcending all else. "Surely, I come quickly," he says, and he will. To every one of us the Master comes.

So I am watching quietly       

Every day,

Whenever the sun shines brightly

I rise and say, 

Surely it is the shining of his face,'

And look unto the gates of his high place

Beyond the sea, 

For I know He is coming shortly

To summon me. 

And when a shadow falls across the window

Of my room,

Where I am working my appointed task, 

I lift my head to watch the door, and ask

if he is come; 

And the Angel answers sweetly

In my home,

"Only a few more shadows, 

And he will come."

We who are Christians stand waiting for the coming of the Master. That is our Advent position. Awake out of sleep. Stand up, man - gird your loins, let the lamp be burning in the sanctuary of the soul, and wait for the coming of the Lord.

Then let us awake and be ready because our opportunities are passing away one by one. "As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith " (Gal. vi. 10).  Now is your opportunity. You know the old motto " I shall pass through this world but once, any good thing therefore I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now, let me not defer it, or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again."

Many of you may die before next Advent. Let me say to myself what I would have you say, "While I have the chance now, as long as I have the chance - let me do all the good I can." The sands are running out. I shall not have many more opportunities, let me be as kind as I can, as helpful as I can, and worship God as well as I can." Time, is going, going! Awake! Awake!

Not many lives, but only one have we 

Frail, fleeting man! 

How sacred should that one life ever be

That narrow span! 

Day after day filled up with blessed toil; 

Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil! 

(From Ezekiel and other Poems, by B. M.  Bonar.)

Don't let the candle splutter out till the sanctuary lamp is lit. Because the sands are running out, and the time is getting shorter and shorter, it is high time that we awake out of sleep.

And last of all, dear brethren, "For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." For our salvation is the destiny which God has prepared for us. If you ask yourselves, "What is the reason of my creation and redemption?" The answer is - it must be - God needs my flesh - God never created the soul without it, and the soul shall pass on into perfection.

". . . him that is able to keep you from falling," says St. Jude, " and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." The end of existence of God's creature must be the perfection of his creation. For this Christ died, for this the Holy Spirit of God was put into your hearts, to worship, to serve him - this is the end, even the salvation of your souls, the perfection of your life. Why did God create us? S. Augustine says, " God created man for himself." There is no other explanation. Read the 121st Psalm, "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh even from the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: and he that keepeth thee will not sleep." There is a religion for you!

Well, then, knowing the time, "That now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer," so I call upon you this Advent, and I say, "Awake! Awake! Awake! knowing the time. Awake! All the world is awake, and we Christians for whom Christ died, are we to fall asleep? Awake!"

O REX GENTIUM (O King of Nations)

O KING OF NATIONS,

thou for whom they long, 

the Cornerstone that makest them both one: 

Come and save thy creatures 

whom thou didst fashion from the dust of the earth.

Listen  HERE

MASS READINGS: 

1 Samuel 1:24-28; 2:1,4-8; Luke 1:46-56

MY SOUL DOTH MAGNIFY THE LORD

Today's Gospel is the response Mary made to Elizabeth's acknowledgment of her blessedness. Mary's words are infused with expressions found in other Biblical canticles and songs which she clearly knew off by heart. On her lips, however, the words are imbued with a far deeper meaning than they had in the Old Testament. Mary's rejoicing begins with the stark acknowledgment that she is "saved by grace" ("my spirit hath rejoiced in God MY Saviour"). Incidentally, salvation by grace alone is one of the truths that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception seeks to guard. 

In union with Mary and the Church down through the ages we pray her song, "the Magnificat" every day at Evensong (or "Vespers"). The Church makes these words her own, singing exuberantly the song of Mary's rejoicing, and, incidentally, reminding ourselves that our only hope of salvation is God's grace. 

With Mary - who we even say has "foreshadowed" the Church - we bless and thank God for his loving-kindness and grace, and all the other blessing he has given us.

Mary is struck by her own lowliness before the immensity of God's power and greatness, for he has worked wonders. As we sing her song, we, too, will be humbled by that same power and greatness; most of all we will be smitten by his love. 

We are approaching the end of Advent. Today Mary shows us the way. Mulling over her prayer in faith, humility and love, and making it our own by faith, will help us to be ready for the coming of Jesus. And, as we do each evening, let us make her great song of praise our own:

My soul doth magnify the Lord : 
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, 
For he hath regarded : 
the lowliness of his handmaiden. 
For behold, from henceforth : 
all generations shall call me blessed. 
For he that is mighty hath magnified me : 
and holy is his name. 
And his mercy is on them that fear him : 
throughout all generations. 
He hath shewed strength with his arm : 
he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 
He hath put down the mighty from their seat : 
and exalted the humble and meek. 
He hath filled the hungry with good things : 
and the rich he hath sent empty away 
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel : 
as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed for ever.

PRAYER

O God, who, seeing man fallen into death,

hast desired to redeem him

by the coming of thy Only Begotten Son,

grant, we beseech thee,

that they who profess his Incarnation with humble devotion

may come to know him as their Redeemer.

Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord,

who liveth and reigneth with thee

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, world without end. Amen.

The Advent "O Antiphons"

Here is a reflection on our "Advent yearning", adapted from Matthew Woodley's Devotions for Advent (p. 10):

Advent ignites a deep longing in our hearts. Before we rush into “Happy Holidays,” we pause and let that longing rise up within us, and we catch glimpses of a better world.

We catch glimpses of a Messiah-healed world, and long for its coming now. The best of our Advent hymns capture this spirit of groaning and longing for Messiah’s better world. “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” with its dark, unresolved melody, cracks our hearts open with longing’s wound. Yet, we know Messiah has come, even as we wait for him to come again. Advent is a deliciously painful mix of expectant joy and anguish.

Advent longing is at the heart of Christian spirituality. Augustine’s Latin phrase desiderium sinus cordis -”yearning makes the heart grow deep”- became a central theme in his pilgrimage on earth. Augustine cried out, “Give me one who yearns . . . give me one far away in this desert, who is thirsty and sighs for the spring of the Eternal country. Give me that sort of man: he knows what I mean.”

C.S. Lewis claimed that in this life the Advent-like stab of longing serves as a spiritual homing device, placed deep in our hearts by God to lead us back to him. Thus, as Psyche realizes in Till We Have Faces, “It almost hurt me . . . like a bird in a cage when the other birds of its kind are flying home . . . The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing . . . to find the place where all the beauty came from . . . The longing for home.”

Advent trains us to ache again. Of all the seasons of the Church year, Advent is the time to acknowledge, feel, and even embrace the joyful anguish of longing for Messiah’s birth and the world’s rebirth. So we sing our aching songs while we light candles and festoon the church with greenery. That is Advent longing, and we couldn’t imagine it any other way.

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During the last seven days of Advent (17th to 24th December), the Church supports our longing (in Matthew Woodley's words) for "a Messiah-healed world" by giving us a special series of antiphon-prayers from the heart of the Old Testament. Each day our service of Evening Prayer, also called Vespers, includes the wonderful song of Mary we know as the “Magnificat”, taken from Luke 1:46-55. (It's called "Magnificat" because that is its first word in Latin.) Throughout the year, Mary’s song is preceded and followed by a short verse or “antiphon” tied to the theme of the particular feast day or the season of the Church year we are in. During these last days of Advent each of the Magnificat antiphons begins with the exclamation “O” and ends with a plea for Messiah to come. As Christmas approaches the cry becomes increasingly urgent.

These “O Antiphons” were composed in the seventh or eighth century when monks put together some of the key Old Testament texts and phrases looking forward to our salvation. They form a tapestry of Biblical images, and give shape to our Advent waiting. In the Middle Ages the custom grew of ringing the the church bells each evening as they were being sung.

The antiphons are:

December 17: O SAPIENTIA (O Wisdom)

O Sapientia, quæ ex ore Altissimi prodiisti, attingens a fine usque ad finem, fortiter suaviterque disponens omnia: veni ad docendum nos viam prudentiæ.

O Wisdom, that camest out of the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to another, firmly and gently ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of understanding. (See Isaiah 28:29; Sirach 24:1-5; Wisdom of Solomon 8:1)

December 18: O ADONAI (O Adonai)

O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammæ rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.

Captain of the house of Israel, who didst appear to Moses in the flame of the burning bush, and gavest him the law on Sinai: Come and deliver us with thine outsretched arm. (See Isaiah 33:22; Exodus 3:2; Exodus 24:12)

December 19: O RADIX JESSE (O Root of Jesse)

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem Gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.

O Root of Jesse, who standest for an ensign of the people, before whom kings shall shut their mouths, to whom the nations shall seek: Come and deliver us and tarry not. (See Isaiah 11:1; Isaiah 11:10; Micah 5:2; Isaiah 45:14; Isaiah 52:15; Romans 15:12)

December 20: O CLAVIS DAVID (O Key of David)

O Clavis David, et sceptrum domus Israel; qui aperis, et nemo claudit; claudis, et nemo aperit: veni, et educ vinctum de domo carceris, sedentem in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Key of David, Sceptre of the house of Israel, who openest and no man shutteth, and shuttest and not man openeth; Come and bring forth out of the prisonhouse him that is bound. (See Isaiah 22:22; Isaiah 9:7; Isaiah 42:7)

December 21: O ORIENS (O Dayspring)

O Oriens, splendor lucis æternæ, et sol justitiæ: veni, et illumina sedentes in tenebris, et umbra mortis.

O Dayspring from on high, Brightness of Eternal Light, and Sun of righteousness: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. (See Isaiah 9:2; Isaiah 60:1-2; Malachi 4:2)

December 22: O REX GENTIUM (O King of Nations)

O Rex Gentium, et desideratus earum, lapisque angularis, qui facis utraque unum: veni, et salva hominem, quem de limo formasti.

O King of Nations, thou for whom they long, the Cornerstone that makest them both one: Come and save thy creatures whom thou didst fashion from the dust of the earth. (See Isaiah 9:6; Isaiah 2:4; Isaiah 28:16; Ephesians 2:14)

December 23: O EMMANUEL (O Emmanuel)

O Emmanuel, Rex et legifer noster, exspectatio gentium, et Salvator earum: veni ad salvandum nos Domine Deus noster.

O Emmanuel, our King and Lawgiver, the Desire of all nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God. (See Isaiah 7:14)

* * * * * * * * * * 

A quirky feature of these antiphons is that the first letter of each, when read backwards, forms an acrostic in Latin. That is, the first letters of Sapientia, Adonai, Radix, Clavis, Oriens, Rex, and Emmanuel in reverse form the Latin words: ERO CRAS, “Tomorrow, I will be [there]” the assurance from Jesus that he is responding to the ancient cry of his people.

Even lay people who don't make daily use of the service of Evening Prayer find that they profit greatly by praying the Magnificat during these final days of Advent, with the particular day's "O Antiphon" before and after it. I encourage you to do that!

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A metrical poem in Latin, based on the O Antiphons, emerged in the 12th Century. The melody, usually considered to be of French origin, was added to the text a hundred years later. The Latin, in turn, has been translated into English. This version (from the New English Hymnal) is the work of T. A. Lacey (1853-1931). It has become one of our most popular hymns/ carols for Advent:

O come, O come, Emmanuel!

Redeem thy captive Israel,

That into exile drear is gone 

Far from the face of God’s dear Son. 

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel 

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Wisdom from on high!

Who madest all in earth and sky,

Creating man from dust and clay:

To us reveal salvation’s way.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel 

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, Adonai,

Who in thy glorious majesty

From Sinai’s mountain, clothed with awe, 

Gavest thy folk the ancient law.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel 

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Root of Jesse! draw 

The quarry from the lion’s claw;

From those dread caverns of the grave.

From nether hell, thy people save.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel 

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, thou Lord of David’s Key!

The royal door fling wide and free; 

Safeguard for us the heavenward road. 

And bar the way to death’s abode.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel 

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, O come, thou Dayspring bright! 

Pour on our souls thy healing light; 

Dispel the long night’s lingering gloom, 

And pierce the shadows of the tomb.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel 

Shall come to thee, O Israel.

O come, Desire of nations! 

show Thy kingly reign on earth below;

Thou Corner-stone, uniting all.

Restore the ruin of our fall.

Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel 

Shall come to thee, O Israel.