Isaiah 2:1-5Matthew 24:36-44 Each year as we celebrate the liturgical cycle, I am grateful for the opportunity to take stock and refocus my mind and heart. We begin Advent with Isaiah’s prophetic vision of all nations gathering in peace. Isaiah invites us to imagine the peoples of the world being restored to unity. It’s a …
Monthly Archives: November 2025
With Lighted Lamps
Priest and Poet, Malcolm Guite, has put together a beautiful poetry anthology for Advent. You can find this on his blog linked below or in his book, Waiting on the Word. There’s poem for each day. The first is Christina Rossetti’s Advent Sunday. ADVENT SUNDAY BEHOLD, the Bridegroom cometh: go ye outWith lighted lamps and …
Praying Advent (4)
FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT THE ANNUNCIATION OF THE MESSIAH’S COMING The liturgy of Advent now turns its full attention to the coming birth of the Lord. The antiphons concentrate on it: for example, the entrance antiphon, “Drop down dew from above, you heavens, and let the clouds rain down the Just One; let the earth …
Praying Advent (3)
THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT THE MESSIANIC AGEThis Sunday is marked by a note of joy. The joy has two causes: the proximate coming of the Lord in the Incarnation and his return at the end of time. The readings emphasise the presence amongst us of the Messianic Age and the Kingdom. The theme of the …
Praying Advent (2)
PREPARE THE WAY The gospels chosen for the Second Sunday of Advent all have as their theme the preparation of the way of the Lord. John’s urgent warning has echoed throughout the world ever since he spoke it, and as it reaches us today it has a twofold reference: prepare for the Lord’s coming at …
Praying Advent (1)
FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENTWATCH AND PRAYThe words ‘vigilant waiting’ capture the mood of the First Sunday of Advent. This expectation is hopeful and is seen in the entrance Antiphon: ‘To you, I lift up my soul, O my God. In you, I have trusted; let me not be put to shame.’Foremost in the Church’s mind …
Hope and her Sisters
Advent focusses our attention of the prophecies of Hope in the Old and New Testament. Each day we are invited to turn to the Lord and wait for him to come to us. Whenever the Liturgy of the Word invites us to hope, it is always a call to deeper love and faith. ‘Péguy, in …
The Touch of God
I have started every Advent for the past 30 years by reading these two paragraphs for Maria Boulding’s book, The Coming of God. ‘If you want God, and long for union with him, yet sometimes wonder what that means or whether it can mean anything at all, you are already walking with the God who comes. …
Christ the King (C)
2 Samuel 5:1-3Colossians 1:12-20Luke 23:35-43 In the lead up to the Coronation of King Charles there was a good deal of commentary around what the ceremony itself might mean for our world today. There was also discussion of the role of the monarch. Is it an outmoded concept? Is it something which becomes redefined with …