COMPASSION Now, now- it is the Lord who speaks- come back to me with all your heart, fasting, weeping, mourning. Let your hearts be broken, not your garments torn, turn to the Lord your God again for he is all tenderness and COMPASSION, slow to anger, rich in graciousness and ready to relent. Each of …
Category Archives: Monastic
Lent Alphabet (B)
BELOVEDAnd from the cloud there came a voice which said:‘This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour. Listen to him.’ The Lent Lectionary pairs Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration with the story of Abraham being promised God’s blessing. When Abraham is asked to look at the night sky and to try and count …
Lent Alphabet (A)
ALMSGIVING But when you give alms, your left hand must not know what your right is doing; your ALMSGIVING must be secret, and your Father who sees all that is done in secret will reward you. Lent begins in a potentially re-assuring place by offering us the three ancient spiritual tools of prayer, fasting and …
Candlemas
Luke 2:22-40 Throughout the liturgical year there are some hymns which seem to draw together all that I hold dear in biblical imagery and incarnational theology. Hail to the Lord who Comes is one of those hymns. This hymn helps me make an immediate connection between the Gospel scene of the presentation and my own …
Mary, Mother of God
Numbers 6:22-27Luke 2:16-21In the Desert Tradition the men and women who fled to the physical margins of society developed a very particular relationship with Scripture and particularly with Biblical characters. They were judged by the Master to have understood the Scriptures in so far as they embodied the virtues of the Biblical characters. This teaching …
Christ is Here
Christ is here, Emmanuel!Majesty so mild:Wisdom dwells with grace and truth,Hidden in this child. Here is God’s eternal Son,Now to us made known,By the Spirit’s love conceived,Mary’s flesh his own. Born of God’s creative will,Christ is Light from Light,Come to rescue Adam’s sons,Waiting in the night. Father, Son and Spirit blest:Heav’n their glory sings,While the …
Christmas Eve
CHRISTMAS EVE 2 Samuel 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a,16Luke 1:67-79 On this last day of Advent the Church lays before us a pivotal text in the Old Testament, 2 Sam 7. Walter Brueggemann describes it as ‘the taproot of the Messianic idea in Israel’. After successfully bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem and putting it …
O Rex Gentium
O King of all the nations,the only joy of every human heart;O keystone of the mighty arch of man,come and save the creatureyou fashioned out of dust. O Rex Gentium O King of our desire whom we despise,King of the nations never on the throne,Unfound foundation, cast-off cornerstone,Rejected joiner, making many one,You have no form …
23rd December
Malachi 3:1-4,23-24Luke 1:57-66 ‘And the Lord you are seeking will suddenly enter his Temple; and the angel of the covenant who you are longing for, yes, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.’ In today’s reading from the prophet Malachi there are two words which always stand out for me: ‘seeking’ and ‘longing’. These …
22nd December
1 Samuel 1:24-28Luke 1:46-56 I don’t think I could imagine a more poignant scene if I tried than that of Hannah leaving her child Samuel in the Temple at Shiloh. Everything about the story raises a huge question. Hannah had longed for a child and saw the birth of Samuel as the greatest blessing. And …