Showing posts with label advent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advent. Show all posts

December 4, 2014

The Advent

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light." Isaiah 9:2

For the Advent

Lord of heaven and earth,you have come to lead the people
out of darkness into the light of Divine love.

Send your Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we may see clearly.

Help us to discover your presence in our world, especially in the needy, in our families and in our communities. Give us graciousness.

May we be evermore certain that our true joy
may be found in you. Amen.

The writer and historian, Frank Prochaska notes that today, "few subjects bring out so well the differences between our selves and our ancestors as [much] as the history of Christian charity.


In an increasingly mobile and materialist world, in which culture has grown more national, indeed global, we no longer relate to the lost world of nineteenth-century parish life.


Today, we hardly imagine a voluntary society that boasted millions of religious associations providing essential services, in which the public rarely saw a government official apart from the post office clerk. Against the backdrop of the [now] welfare state and the collapse of church membership, the very idea of Christian Social Reform has a quaint, Victorian air about it."

And yet the Christ remains to proclaim to all that the people in darkness have seen a great light.
Psalm 104: Send out your spirit, renew the face of the earth.