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Light in deep darkness.

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Advent is the coldest, darkest, lowest time of the year. That time when we are most aware of our fragility and vulnerability, when it can be easy to lose sight of the Lord’s radiance. It’s the season when it seems most tempting to give in to despair and hopelessness as everything around us seems dark, cold and colourless. It’s a time when we need to be reminded that the light of the Lord’s love has not disappeared from our lives.

Today we’re celebrating the feast of St Lucy. This morning we sang a hymn written by one of our sisters that captures both the darkness and the vulnerability of Advent and the hope that St Lucy points us towards. A young woman martyred for her faith, St Lucy reminds us that, however dark our world might seem, the light has not been wiped out of our lives, instead it is planted deep within us waiting for the right time to burst forth into new life. This morning we sang:

Deep in the darkness seeds of light are sown,
The joyous Light the dark has never known;
Beneath the ground the living waters sing,
And secret streams new life, new gladness bring:
Before the seas were shaped the Fountain played,
And Light shone out before the stars were made.

The words of the hymn offer us hope. They remind me that however dark life might seem there are seeds of light hidden in the darkness, waiting, germinating, preparing to put out shoots when the time is right. As we approach the shortest day, the lowest point of the year I am grateful for St Lucy’s gentle light reminding us to look towards the Lord’s radiance and directing us to new life and new hope.

What seeds of light are sown through your darkness this Advent?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Gospel Lectio Divina Prophetic voices Scripture

A place to rest

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Rest can be in very short supply as we try to juggle the realities of complex and challenging, lives. That’s especially true at this time of year with all its commitments, expectations and anxieties. So these words from today’s gospel really resonated with me:

“Come to me, all you who labour and are overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

It’s one of those passages I can never hear enough. With the best will the world, however much I reflect on it, I will invariably forget it again as I rush from pillar to post with my mind full of all the tasks I have to complete. So today I’m especially grateful for Psalm 102 which reinforced the gospel message:

“The Lord is compassion and love, slow to anger and rich in mercy.”

Its words point me back to the gospel where Jesus offers me a different way of being, inviting me to allow him to show me his gentleness. He offers to teach me to be as gentle towards myself as he is. His offer of rest from my burdens stands regardless of whether or not the burdens I carry are trivial or essential, self-imposed or passed on by others.

It seems to me that in these challenging times we need this message of gentleness and compassion more than ever. The harder times are, the heavier our burdens the more we need a safe place to rest, a place where burdens can be acknowledged and handed over, a place where we can be held and loved.

Where are you aware of Christ offering you a safe place to rest today?

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Consolation

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There are some words in Scripture that I think we can’t hear often enough. That applies to these words from today’s first reading:

“’Console my people, console them’ says your God…”

They touch the very depths of our hearts, offering comfort and hope whatever we face. Our world projects an image of how life should look. We see it on television, in films, in magazines and on social media.

We are supposed to be living “perfect” lives, happy, balanced and with everything we could possibly need or want. We find this image beguiling and attractive, and we don’t have to look very far before we begin to realise how little it matches the reality of our lives.

Isaiah allows us acknowledge our pain, our suffering, our brokenness. That in itself is a true gift. He frees us from having to live up to a false image of how our lives should be. Isaiah reminds us that we can come into God’s presence with all the jagged edges of our brokenness. We can bring to God all the hurts we carry, and all those we have inflicted on others.

We can trust Isaiah’s promise that we will be met, not with condemnation, but with the consolation of a God who knows our weakness and our suffering. Much as we need it and desire it, it is not always easy to open our hearts to such wholehearted consolation.

What would help you find the courage to open your heart to the consolation God offers you this Advent?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Gospel Lectio Divina Liturgy Saints Scripture

Hope and Promise

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Today, as we celebrate the Immaculate Conception I’m reflecting on Luke’s beautiful depiction of Mary’s encounter with the angel Gabriel. God reaches out not to offer consolation and healing or judgement and condemnation, but with an invitation to take an active part in the work of salvation.

The angel doesn’t come to command Mary’s obedience, but to ask for her wholehearted cooperation in bringing salvation to a broken world the world. Having laid out God’s plan for the angel waits for her response. This is summed up in a sermon by St Bernard of Clairvaux:

“The angel is waiting for your answer, it is time for him to return to the God who sent him. We too are waiting, O Lady…If you consent straightaway shall we be saved…by one little word of yours in answer shall we all be made alive.”

His words make the sense of creation waiting with anticipation and hope almost tangible.

This can make it easy to forget that Mary was an ordinary woman. She lived with the same mix of challenges, hopes and expectations that we all face. Yet, she also belonged to people who had waited in hope for generations for the coming of the Messiah.

Living under an occupying army she had learned to keep hope alive when it seemed to be pointless. She had learned to trust when it seemed that every promise had been broken. All this enabled her response, filling us all with anticipation and hope:

‘I am the handmaid of the Lord,’ said Mary ‘let what you have said be done to me.’

We come to Advent facing our own mix of hopelessness and broken promises. Like Mary we are called to keep trusting in the Lord promises for our times, however hard that might seem.

Where is Christ calling you to trust the promise of his coming this Advent?

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A straight path.

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As we begin the second week of Advent the call to attentiveness becomes more urgent with the appearance of John the Baptist. John, Jesus’ cousin is an uncomfortable and challenging figure. He is the ultimate outsider, everything about him seems designed to challenge us and make us uncomfortable.

His message, with its call to repentance, is even more disconcerting than his appearance and lifestyle. It’s tempting either to sanitise him or ignore him. Instead, the gospel calls us to give him and his message our wholehearted attention.

“A voice cries in the wilderness: prepare away for the Lord, make his paths straight.”

We’re already overwhelmed with preparation in Advent. As we speed toward Christmas we’re necessarily full of plans to arrange cards and presents, food, parties, church services, liturgies and all kinds of gatherings. When we hear John’s call it can feel like there is no space left for any more preparation in the busyness of our lives.

John’s call, and the call of Advent, is about a different sort of preparation. It involves taking time to look within our hearts. It’s a time for acknowledging and accepting inner wilderness we all carry within us. John’s call to repentance is a call, not to hide that inner wilderness from Christ, but to acknowledge and welcome him into it.

From his place on the margins John calls us to bring all the marginalised parts of ourselves into Christ’s presence, exposing them to his loving, healing gaze.

How are you being called to make a straight path in your heart for Christ this Advent?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Lectio Divina Prophetic voices Scripture

Our gracious God.

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Life can be difficult and challenging, we all carry burdens that sometimes feel too heavy to bear. We can easily feel overwhelmed by sadness, grief, anxiety or a myriad of other painful emotions that can leave us feeling isolated and hopeless. It can feel worse as we move through Advent towards Christmas with all it’s expectations, memories, hopes and disappointments.

It can be especially hard to acknowledge these feelings when society expects us to be upbeat, positive and in control of every aspect of life. Today’s first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, offers a hopeful alternative to what can feel like a double bind. He writes:

“God will be gracious to you when God hears your cry; when God hears God will answer.”

We often think we have to be on our best behaviour in God’s presence. We bring God what we think are the “nice” parts of ourselves, and push the other parts aside. Isaiah suggests a different approach. He promises that if bring our pain and our challenges to Gods’ presence we will receive consolation and healing.

Isaiah reassures us that God will be there, waiting to listen to whatever we need to share. He tells us that God will not only hear our cry, but will respond with love. Isaiah tells us God will stay with us, healing our hurt, wiping away our tears and offering us the promise of new life.

Where is God inviting you to bring your burdens into Gods’ presence this Advent?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Lectio Divina Liturgy Prophetic voices Scripture

People of Joy

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Advent calls us to be people of joy. We’re called to rejoice in the knowledge that is always with us. We can rejoice because we know that that we are surrounded by the love of God, a love that seeks to fulfil our hopes and our desires.

This beautiful and consoling thought is taken up again today by the prophet Isaiah as he describes how God will transform the lives of his people, welcoming them home to a new place of safety. He writes:

“The lowly will rejoice in the Lord even more and the poorest exult in the Holy One; for tyrants shall be no more, and scoffers vanish…and all be destroyed who are disposed to do evil…”

It’s a promise to put those most in need in the forefront, to protect them and bring them to a place where their dignity will be respected and they will be truly valued. As I look around our world it’s tempting to see this as at best a beautiful fantasy, a dream that has no place in the harsh reality of a modern life that leaves no place for dreamers.

Yet Advent is the season for dreamers. It calls us to risk dreaming. This is not an escapist fantasy. In the darkest time of the year Advent invites us to look into the darkness and dream of the light that it cannot overcome.

It encourages us to imagine the very best we can be in these dark times, so that we have a vision to work towards, something to aim for. We won’t achieve the perfection we dream of, but we can move towards it, inching towards a world that is kinder, more loving, more compassionate.

Where is Christ inviting you rejoice and dream this Advent?

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Advent Benedictine Spirituality Christ Lectio Divina Liturgy Prophetic voices Scripture

Trusting the Lord

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At the darkest and coldest time of year Advent offers us hope. It carries a clear message that however unlikely it might feel we will pass through this dark time into the light of new life that the Incarnation promises us.

In today’s first reading Isaiah calls the people to keep trusting, regardless of appearances, in spite of all they have lost and suffered:

“Trust in the Lord for ever, for the Lord is the everlasting Rock…”

He knows that it is not easy for people who have suffered and lost everything to trust, yet he carries on with his message of hope. He carries on believing that the promises God has made to the people will be fulfilled. Even in the darkest of times Isaiah’s message to the people is to wait in hope for the light to return.

As we sit in our own dark times it’s a valuable message for us too. In the gospel Jesus shows us how we can keep on trusting in such times. He tells the story of the wise person who built their house on rock to remind us that it is the rock of his word and his teaching that will sustain us whatever storms we face.

Where are you being called to trust that Christ will bring his light into the heart of your dark times?

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Advent blessings

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However small and faltering our faith might seem Advent reminds us that we can discover God’s blessing in our lives. Today’s readings paint a beautiful picture of the blessings God showers on us. Isaiah shows the people of God being welcomed home to a place of safety, plenty and consolation:

“On this mountain God will remove the mourning veil covering all peoples, and the shroud enwrapping all nations, God will destroy Death for ever. The Lord will wipe away the tears from every cheek…”

In the gospel, Matthew’s version of the feeding of the 5000, Jesus makes that vision a reality for the crowds who follow him. Both readings offer us a glimpse of the Kingdom in our midst, of the blessings a loving God showers on us.

It’s easy to believe in such blessings when our lives are relatively easy, when our societies feel stable and secure. But we live in times of great uncertainty, suffering and fear. That makes it harder to discover and acknowledge the blessings that God is still showering on us.

Advent calls us to be open to the possibility of blessing even in times when all our instinct tells us to be wary. This is not a new situation, all through their challenging and difficult history the people of Israel believed in and sought God’s blessing even when it seemed very far from them.

Mary, Elizabeth, Zechariah and Joseph stayed open to the possibility of blessing even in hard and dangerous circumstances. They were able to journey on trusting that if they lived with integrity they would receive the blessings God promised.

Where are you discovering God’s blessing in these challenging times?

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A Kingdom of peace and harmony

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Today’s first reading, from the prophet Isaiah, paints a beautiful picture of peace and harmony. It describes a leader filled with the spirit of the Lord, who acts with integrity, wisdom and insight:

“A shoot springs from the stock of Jesse, a scion thrusts from his roots: on him the spirit of the Lord rests, a spirit of wisdom and insight, a spirit of counsel and power, a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.”

His coming heralds a time of peace and prosperity, where differences are put aside, and unlikely partners live and flourish in alongside each other:

“They do no hurt, no harm, on all my holy mountain, for the country is filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters swell the sea.”

This beautiful vision touches us deeply because in the depths of our hearts long for wise leadership, and the true peace that allows all people to flourish. Yet, as we look around our world today we see few signs of such leaders or of the peace Isaiah describes.

Isaiah’s vision is based on the hopes of generations of people of faith, and of their understanding of what makes for human flourishing. More than that it’s based on the efforts of people of faith and goodwill, who acted with courage and integrity even when that seemed to go against their own best interests.

Advent is a wake-up call It compels us to notice the disparity between Isaiah’s vision and the word we live in. It invites us to ask ourselves what choices we can make in our lives to help make that vision a reality.

To even attempt that is admit the need to make hard choices, putting aside our own interests for others. Advent calls us to help make this vision a reality for today in whatever small ways we can.

Where are you being called to help make the kingdom a reality for those around you this Advent?