{"id":4382,"date":"2025-12-26T10:11:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-26T10:11:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/?p=4382"},"modified":"2025-12-26T10:14:28","modified_gmt":"2025-12-26T10:14:28","slug":"the-indwelling-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/2025\/12\/26\/the-indwelling-of-god\/benedictine-spirituality\/4382\/","title":{"rendered":"The indwelling of God."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photo by Chad Madden on unsplash.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From the archives for the feast of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr. I\u2019m reflecting on this from the 1st reading:

\u201cStephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God\u2026\u201d<\/em>

This wasn\u2019t a \u201chappy ending\u201d in any human sense. It happened as Stephen faced a violent death. This led me to think about the difference between a Christmas movie and the nativity.

I love a Christmas movie, the cheesier the better. With their beautifully decorated scenes and cosy gatherings that happen with minimal effort and stress they\u2019re great background for getting Christmas cards written or presents wrapped.

Yet I know it\u2019s not real. Even as we long for that happy ending we know that the reality of our lives is completely different. When our happy endings do come they are hard won and often appear a bit battered.

The nativity doesn\u2019t offer a happy ending, instead it offers hope, new life and consolation however messy our lives are. It comes to us with a small, vulnerable, outsider baby, conceived in suspicious circumstances and born in a stable. It\u2019s hard to imagine a less \u201cMessiah-like\u201d beginning. Yet, because our own lives are messy, imperfect and uncertain it is precisely the beginning we need.

The false promise of a \u201chappy ever after\u201d can leave us feeling we\u2019ve failed to make the mark in some way. The alternative and real promise of the God of love who chooses to come to dwell with us in our messy and vulnerable live, brings us hope and consolation whatever we face in life.

Where are you aware of the God who offers to dwell with you this Christmastide?
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the archives for the feast of St Stephen, the first Christian martyr. I\u2019m reflecting on this from the 1st reading: \u201cStephen, filled with the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God\u2026\u201d This wasn\u2019t a \u201chappy ending\u201d in any human sense. It happened as Stephen faced a violent death. This led […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,494,313,461,239,271,537,245,246],"tags":[802,28,18,223,314,448,481,6,8,33,229,13,29,727,15,746,10],"class_list":["post-4382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-benedictine-spirituality","category-christ","category-christmastide","category-divine-office","category-gospel","category-lectio-divina","category-liturgy","category-saints","category-scripture","tag-actsoftheapostles","tag-benedictine","tag-challenge","tag-christlike","tag-christmastide","tag-discipleship","tag-emmanuel","tag-gospel","tag-hope","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdomvalues","tag-lectiodivina","tag-love","tag-martyr","tag-newlife","tag-ststephen","tag-trust"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4382"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4387,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4382\/revisions\/4387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turveyabbey.org.uk\/pilgrimage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}