{"id":1502,"date":"2021-12-22T10:04:33","date_gmt":"2021-12-22T10:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/?p=1502"},"modified":"2021-12-22T10:04:33","modified_gmt":"2021-12-22T10:04:33","slug":"20th-dec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/?p=1502","title":{"rendered":"20th Dec"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><a href=\"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/THELOR1.png\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/THELOR1-1024x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1503\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Isaiah 7:1014<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As Christmas draws closers our readings focus on the key figures in God\u2019s plan for humanity. The text from Isaiah 7 in the first reading provides the background to Gospel story of the Annunciation. Isaiah\u2019s words speak directly to the political situation of 736 BC.\u00a0 In the face of the growing power of Babylon, Judah is tempted to make an alliance with Assyria. Isaiah warns against this and when King Ahaz requests a sign this is what he hears:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2018The Lord himself, therefore,<br>will give you a sign.<br>It is this: the maiden is with child<br>and will soon give birth to a son<br>whom she will call Immanuel,<br>a name which means God-is-with-us.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Isaiah\u2019s message is very clear: trust in God and don\u2019t be tempted to organise things yourself. From our vantage point the words are very comforting. In the turmoil of our daily lives we need to know that God is with us. The image of a pregnant maiden also tells Ahaz that there is a plan and the difficulties will pass. God\u2019s plan will unfold in months and not years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the past year we\u2019ve had to trust that our government has a plan and it hasn\u2019t been easy. More than ever we have needed to believe that God is with us. We\u2019ve been pretty much powerless in the face of the big issues but perhaps have learnt the value of doing the small things consistently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Let us pray that we may be open to God\u2019s promptings and ready to trust in his plan for our lives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Isaiah 7:1014 As Christmas draws closers our readings focus on the key figures in God\u2019s plan for humanity. The text from Isaiah 7 in the first reading provides the background to Gospel story of the Annunciation. Isaiah\u2019s words speak directly to the political situation of 736 BC.\u00a0 In the face of the growing power of &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/?p=1502\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;20th Dec&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monastic","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1504,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1502\/revisions\/1504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/turveyabbey.org.uk\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}