Weekly Newsletter: 4th Sunday of Advent (Year A)

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish

OUR VISION

To be a vibrant Catholic Community

unified in its commitment

to growing disciples for Christ

Parish Priest: Fr Mike Delaney
Mob: 0417 279 437
mike.delaney@aohtas.org.au
Assistant Priest: Fr Paschal Okpon
Mob: 0438 562 731
paschalokpon@yahoo.com
Seminarian in Residence: Kanishka Perera
Mob: 0499 035 199
kanish_biyanwila@yahoo.com
Priest in Residence: Fr Phil McCormack
Mob: 0437 521 257
pmccormack43@bigpond.com
Postal Address: PO Box 362, Devonport 7310
Parish Office: 90 Stewart Street, Devonport 7310
(Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10am - 3pm)
Office Phone: 6424 2783 Fax: 6423 5160
Email: merseyleven@aohtas.org.au
Secretary: Annie Davies
Finance Officer: Anne Fisher
Pastoral Council Chair: Felicity Sly
Mob: 0418 301 573
fsly@internode.on.net

Mersey Leven Catholic Parish Weekly Newsletter: mlcathparish.blogspot.com.au

Parish Mass times for the Month: mlcpmasstimes.blogspot.com.au

Weekly Homily Podcast: mikedelaney.podomatic.com

Archdiocesan Website: www.hobart.catholic.org.au for news, information and details of other Parishes.

PLENARY COUNCIL PRAYER

Come, Holy Spirit of Pentecost.
Come, Holy Spirit of the great South Land.
O God, bless and unite all your people in Australia
and guide us on the pilgrim way of the Plenary Council.
Give us the grace to see your face in one another
and to recognise Jesus, our companion on the road.
Give us the courage to tell our stories and to speak boldly of your truth.
Give us ears to listen humbly to each other
and a discerning heart to hear what you are saying.
Lead your Church into a hope-filled future,
that we may live the joy of the Gospel.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord, bread for the journey from age to age.
Amen.
Our Lady Help of Christians, pray for us.
St Mary MacKillop, pray for us.

Parish Prayer

Heavenly Father,

We thank you for gathering us together
and calling us to serve as your disciples.

You have charged us through Your Son, Jesus, with the great mission

of evangelising and witnessing your love to the world.

Send your Holy Spirit to guide us as we discern your will

for the spiritual renewal of our parish.

Give us strength, courage, and clear vision
as we use our gifts to serve you.

We entrust our parish family to the care of Mary, our mother,

and ask for her intercession and guidance
as we strive to bear witness

to the Gospel and build an amazing parish.

Amen.

Our Parish Sacramental Life

Baptism: Arrangements are made by contacting Parish Office. Parents attend a Baptismal Preparation Session organised with a Priest.

Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist: Are received following a Family–centred, Parish-based, School-supported Preparation Program.

Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults: prepares adults for reception into the Catholic community.

Marriage: arrangements are made by contacting one of our priests - couples attend a Pre-marriage Program

Anointing of the Sick: please contact one of our priests

Reconciliation: Ulverstone - Fridays (10am - 10:30am), Devonport - Saturday (5:15pm– 5.45pm)

Eucharistic Adoration - Devonport: Every Friday 10am - 12noon, concluding with Stations of the Cross and Angelus
Benediction with Adoration Devonport: First Friday each month - commences at 10am and concludes with Mass

Legion of Mary: Wednesdays 11am Sacred Heart Church Community Room, Ulverstone

Prayer Group: Charismatic Renewal – In Recess until Mon 13th January. For information: Michael Gaffney 0447 018 068

Weekday Masses 24th – 27th December, 2019

Tuesday: 9:30am Penguin
Wednesday: As Per Christmas Times below

Thursday 12noon Devonport

Friday: 9:30am Ulverstone

Next Weekend 28th & 29th December

Saturday Vigil: 6:00pm Devonport

6:00pm Penguin

Sunday Mass: 8:30am Port Sorell

9:00am Ulverstone

10:30am Devonport

11:00am Sheffield
5:00pm Latrobe

MINISTRY ROSTERS 28th & 29th DECEMBER 2019

Devonport:

Readers: Vigil: A McIntyre, M Williams, C Kiely-Hoye 10:30am: A Hughes, E Barrientos, P Piccolo

Ministers of Communion: Vigil B O’Connor, R Beaton, T Bird, Beau Windebank, J Heatley

10.30am: K Hull, F Sly, E Petts, S Riley, S Arrowsmith

Cleaners: 27th Dec: D Atkins, V Riley 3rd Jan: M.W.C.

Piety Shop: 28th Dec: A Berryman 29th Dec: P Piccolo

Ulverstone:

Reader/s: S Lawrence Flowers: M Byrne

Hospitality: M Byrne, G Doyle

Ministers of Communion: M Mott, W Bajzelj, J Jones, T Leary

Penguin:

Greeters G Hills-Eade, B Eade Commentator: Y Downes

Readers: Y Downes, A Landers Ministers of Communion: J Barker, T Clayton
Liturgy: S.C. J

Setting Up: T Clayton Care of Church: Y & R Downes

Port Sorell:

Readers: G Bellchambers, P Anderson Ministers of Communion: L Post Cleaners: C & J Howard

ADVENT BLESSING

Lord God, your Church joyfully awaits the coming of its Saviour, who enlightens our hearts and dispels the darkness of ignorance and sin.

Pour forth your blessings upon us as we light the fourth candle of this wreath; may its light reflect the splendour of Christ, who is Lord, for ever and ever. Amen

Readings this Week: Fourth Sunday of Advent – Year A

First Reading: Isaiah 7:10-14

Second Reading: Romans 1:1-7

Gospel: Matthew 1: 18-24

PREGO REFLECTION ON TODAY'S GOSPEL

In these final days of Advent waiting, I may find that prayer is distracted and time is short.

I may be overwhelmed by the busy-ness of Christmas preparations, by the arrival of family, or perhaps by a sense of loss or emptiness as I remember those I love with whom I will not share the festivities this year.

So I pray in whatever way I can, perhaps treasuring a few minutes of joyful anticipation in moments of stillness between activity, or sharing in the lonely waiting of the pregnant Mary.

If I have more time, I may like to use this Gospel, allowing it to draw me into the mystery of events surrounding Jesus’s birth.

I ponder the text slowly. Perhaps I enter into a dialogue, speaking with Mary, or with Joseph, about their experience.

What do I notice about Mary and Joseph … or hear them say?

Perhaps I find myself wanting to be, in some way, like one or both of them?

I pray for this grace.

How might I try to bring the true spirit of Christmas to others this year?

After a time, I end my prayer, perhaps using the old or new Opening Prayer. I may like to voice this in the first person, if praying alone.

Readings Next Week: The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary & Joseph – Year A

First Reading: Sirach 3: 2-6, 12-14

Second Reading: Colossians 3: 12-21

Gospel: Matthew 2: 13-15, 19-23

Your prayers are asked for the sick:

Chris Fielding, Margaret Becker, Brenda Paul, Erin Kyriazis, Carmel Leonard, Philip Smith, Frank McDonald & …

Let us pray for those who have died recently:

Geoff Ransom, David Handyside, Kevin Barker, Peter Williams, David Cole

Let us pray for those whose anniversary occurs about this time: 19th – 25th December

Jamie Fahey, Amy Batt, Greg Williams, Laurance Kelcey, Austin Florian, Eileen McIver, Neil Hensby, Fr John Wall, Gwenda Stones, Wallace Malone, Michael Quillerat, Gladys Ballini, Max Anderson, Margaret Waddle, Maria Duggan, Violet Monaghan, Carmel Cook, Kevin Robertson, Gregory & Damian Matthews and deceased relatives of Robertson, Ravaillion Proctor and Cunningham families.

May the souls of the faithful departed,

through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen

Mersey Leven Parish Community welcome and congratulate …..

Hugo Suter & Cooper Chambers

On their Baptism this weekend.

Weekly Ramblings

Christmas is almost here and by now most of us (or at least me) are exhausted by all the running round and extra stuff that has been happening as we try to prepare to celebrate the Birth of our Saviour. It is truly a wonderful time but there is still the challenge of making time for prayer and reflection so that the real meaning of Christmas is part of our preparation.

Over the summer break there are a few changes to our timetables and the events which form part of our Parish life. The Office will be open this Monday (23^rd December) and will reopen on Tuesday 28^th Jan. The Piety Stall will close after this weekend and re-open on 1^st February. Friday Adoration at OLOL will be in recess during January and will recommence on the 7^th February, however there will be Mass as normal on the 1^st Friday (3^rd Jan) and 1^st Saturday (4^th Jan) at the usual times. Other changes will be announced in the modified Newsletter which will be available each weekend during the holiday season.

This is the last weekend that Kanishka will be with us – he is here for the Christmas Masses – so, on behalf of the Parish, I would like to express my appreciation for his efforts during these few short weeks and wish him all the best for future and hope that he will be able to spend some more time with us in the years to come.

For those of you are heading off before Christmas I extend my best wishes and thanks for your participation in the life of our Parish and pray that this season will be a time of peace, joy and happiness to you all. For those of you who are sticking around during January – I look forward to sharing this time with you as well and hope that we will all be refreshed and ready for 2020.

Take care on the roads and in your homes,

A very sincere thank you to everyone for your prayers, thoughts and kindness expressed to me during my illness and my ongoing recovery.

God Bless, Brenda Paul

Letter From Rome

Pope Francis is dragging the Church, kicking and screaming, into ... the 20th Century

The pope's reforms are seen as too modest by some, but too radical by others by Robert Mickens, Rome. December 19, 2019.

This article is from the La-Croix International website - you can access the site here but complete access is via paid subscription

"The Church is 200 years behind the times."

Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini famously said that in August 2012, just a couple of weeks before he died at age 85.

In what was labeled his last spiritual testament, the Jesuit scripture scholar and former Archbishop of Milan said the Catholic Church was tired and listless; its clergy dressed pompously and its places of worship cavernous and empty.

"The Church is 200 years behind the times," he lamented. "Why doesn't it rouse itself? Are we afraid? Afraid rather than courageous?"

Seven months after Martini made his cri de coeur, another Jesuit by the name of Jorge Mario Bergoglio – he, too, an archbishop of a major diocese, but from the South American country of Argentina – was elected Bishop of Rome.

In the nearly seven years since he appeared before the world as history's first pope named Francis, he has – in many ways – sought to bring the Church up to pace with the Catholic people of this age and the rapidly changing world.

How has he done so far?

Being dragged, kicking and screaming…

"The pope is dragging the Church, kicking and screaming, into the 20th century," a friend likes to remind me.

My friend is a former Franciscan who is now a senior Anglican priest. He has a very dry, and sometimes ironic, sense of humor. So, yes, he's well aware that we are already two decades into the 21st century.

So by his estimation, Pope Francis is half way there in closing the 200-year gap that Martini indicated.

And the sentiments of many Catholics – and others – seem to concur. Proof of this has been the various reactions to the pope's new rescript to abolish the "pontifical secret" regarding clergy sex abuse.

While some commentators called it a "monumental" and "historic" development, others derided it as a public relations scheme and something that doesn't really change much of anything.

What good is eliminating secrecy, one complained, if in places like Italy – where the pope is the head of the national Church – bishops and priests are still not required by ecclesiastical or civil legislation to report abuse to law enforcement authorities?

Prying things open or just smoke and mirrors?

Then there are the reactions to Francis' efforts toward financial reform at the Vatican. Many in the old guard believe he has gone too far in trying to bring transparency to institutions that have long operated as if they were offshore banks. Others think the Argentine pope's financial reforms are all smoke and mirrors.

And what about the pastoral reforms this pontificate has tried to introduce? For instance, he has asked the Church's ministers to change the way they care for the divorced and remarried, people in other "irregular" marriage (or marriage-like) situations, as well as gays and lesbians.

He has also called for more incisive presence of women at all levels of the Church's decision-making levels. And he's opened up new studies on women deacons, including through a pontifical commission that he's promised to re-commission.

Slowly moving forward

But have things really changed much for women in the Church? I'm not sure many of them think so, especially those who are young.

But there sure are a lot of clerics (and clericalist laypeople) who are bemoaning – and condemning – the fact that the pope has even opened up these issues to change.

Most everyone would have to agree that Francis is moving the Church forward, even very slowly. In some ways, he's doing it in the manner that his late Jesuit confrere prescribed.

In his final interview Cardinal Martini recommended "three very strong instruments" for healing the Church from its exhaustion and overcoming the 200-year credibility gap.

Conversion is the first and most important instrument

"The church must recognize its errors and follow a radical path of change, beginning with the pope and the bishops. The pedophilia scandals compel us to take up a path of conversion," he said.

"Questions about sexuality, and all the themes involving the body, are an example. These are important to everyone, sometimes perhaps too important," Martini mused.

But he said they were a great challenge to the Church's credibility.

"We have to ask ourselves if people still listen to the advice of the Church on sexual matters. Is the Church still an authoritative reference in this field, or simply a caricature in the media?" he wondered.

Engaging with the Word of God and learning discernment

The late cardinal said the second instrument for reforming the Church is Sacred Scripture.

"Vatican Council II gave the Bible back to Catholics… Only those who perceive this Word in their heart can be part of those who will help achieve renewal of the Church, and who will know how to respond to personal questions with the right choice," Martini insisted.

"The Word of God is simple, and seeks to be a companion to a heart that listens. ... Neither the clergy nor ecclesiastical law can take the place of the inner life of the human person," he continued.

"All the external rules, laws and dogmas are there to clarify this internal voice and for the discernment of spirits," Martini emphasized.

The sacraments: help for those in need

The third instrument of healing and reform, the late cardinal noted, are the Church's sacraments.

"The sacraments are not an instrument of discipline, but a help for people in their journey and in the weaknesses of their life," he said.

"Are we bringing the sacraments to the people who need new strength? I think of all the divorced and remarried couples... They need special protection... If the parents feel like they're outside the Church, or don't feel its support, the Church will lose the next generation," he predicted.

"The question of whether the divorced can receive Communion ought to be turned around. How can the Church help people in complicated family situations with the power of the sacraments?" he wondered

A poor Church for the poor, led by outsiders

Cardinal Martini, who was one of global Catholicism's most credible spiritual leaders during his 22 years as the archbishop of Europe's largest diocese, was adamant that the Church needed to change.

"I advise the pope and the bishops to find twelve people who are complete outsiders for administrative positions," he said.

He actually said people who are fuori dalle righe(literally, "outside the lines") who are "close to the very poorest and are surrounded by young people who are trying new things."

Pope Francis said from the start of his pontificate that he dreamed of a poor Church for the poor. He is a Vatican outsider – the first pope since Saint Pius X (1903-1914) – who never studied or worked in Rome. And he has begun to bring in other outsiders to take up administrative posts in the Roman Curia.

Those anxious for change, reform, renewal and the actualization of John XXIII's call for aggiornamento (or up-dating) are probably not completely satisfied with the small steps forward that Francis has made so far.

But those who want no change and who cling to static structures and ways of doing (or not doing) things are actually distraught that the pope has taken even these modest steps.

That's because they know that once things begin to move forward, there is no going back.

Another Name For Every Thing

This article is taken from the Daily Email sent by Fr Richard Rohr OFM from the Center for Action and Contemplation. You can subscribe to receive the email by clicking here

What if Christ is a name for the transcendent within of every “thing” in the universe?

The Christ Mystery anoints all physical matter with eternal purpose from the very beginning. The word translated from the Greek as Christ comes from the Hebrew word mesach, meaning “the anointed” one or Messiah. He reveals that all is anointed! Many people are still praying and waiting for something that has already been given to us three times: first in creation; second in Jesus, “so that we could hear him, see him with our eyes, watch him, and touch him with our hands, the Word who is life” (1 John 1–2); and third, in the ongoing beloved community (what Christians call the Body of Christ), which is slowly evolving throughout all of human history (Romans 8:18). We are still in the Flow.

All of us take part in the evolving, universe-spanning Christ Mystery. Jesus is a map for the time-bound and personal level of life; Christ is the blueprint for all time and space and life itself. Both reveal the universal pattern of self-emptying and infilling (Christ) and death and resurrection (Jesus), which is the process humans have called “holiness,” “salvation,” or “growth.” For Christians, this universal pattern perfectly mimics the inner life of the Trinity in Christian theology [1], which is our template for how reality unfolds, since all things are created “in the image and likeness” of God (Genesis 1:26-27).

For me, a true comprehension of the full Christ Mystery is the key to the foundational reform of the Christian religion, which alone will move us beyond any attempts to corral or capture God into our exclusive group. As the New Testament dramatically and clearly puts it, “Before the world was made, we have been chosen in Christ . . . claimed as God’s own and chosen from the very beginning . . . so that God could bring everything together under the headship of Christ” (Ephesians 1:3, 10, 11). If all of this is true, we have a theological basis for a very natural religion that includes everybody. The problem was solved from the beginning!

[1] For a fuller treatment of the Trinity, see my book with Mike Morell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House: 2016). Trying to understand the Trinity is foundational to trying to understand the Universal Christ.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe (Convergent Books: 2019), 5, 20-21.

Deep Incarnation - Another Meaning of Christmas

This article is taken from the archive of Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI. You can find this article and many others by clicking here

Some years ago at a religious conference a man approached the microphone and after apologizing for what he felt would be an inappropriate question, asked this: “I love my dog. When he dies will he go to heaven? Do animals have eternal life?”

The answer to that might come as a surprise to many of us, but, looked at through the eyes of Christian faith, yes, his dog can go to heaven. It’s one of the meanings of Christmas. God came into the world to save the world, not just the people living in it. The incarnation has meaning for humanity, but also for the cosmos itself. We don’t know exactly what that means, and our imaginations aren’t up to the task of picturing it, but, because of the incarnation, dogs too can go to heaven. Is this fanciful? No, it’s scriptural teaching.

At Christmas was celebrate the birth of Jesus and see in his birth the beginning of the mystery of the incarnation unfolding in history, the mystery of God becoming human in physical flesh in order to save the world. What we tend to struggle with though is how we understand what’s meant by Christ saving the world. Most of us take that to mean that Christ came into the world to save the people, those of us with self-awareness and eternal souls.

That’s true, but our faith also asks us to believe that God’s saving activity in the Christ extends to more than only human beings and more than even animals and other living things. God’s saving activity in Christ reaches so deep that it saves creation itself – the oceans, the mountains, the soil that grows our food, the desert sands, and the earth itself. Christ came to save all of those things too, not just us, the people.

Where, you might ask, does scripture teach this? It teaches it most everywhere in implicit ways though it teaches it quite explicitly in a number of different places. For example, in the Epistle to the Romans (8, 19-22) St. Paul writes: I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

This may come as a surprise to us since, until quite recently, our preaching and catechesis has not often made this explicit. However what St. Paul is saying here is that physical creation itself, the cosmic world, will, at the end of time, be transformed in some glorious way and enter into heaven, just as human beings do. He’s also saying that, like us, it too somehow senses its mortality and groans to be set free from its present limits.

We need to ask ourselves this question? What do we believe will happen to physical creation at the end of time? Will it be destroyed, burnt-up, annihilated? Or, will it simply be abandoned and left empty and deserted like a stage after a play has ended, while we go on to life elsewhere? Scripture informs us otherwise, that is, it tells us that physical creation itself, our planet earth, will also be transformed (“liberated from its bondage to decay”) and enter into heaven with us. How will this happen? We can’t imagine it, just as we can’t imagine our own transformed state. But scripture assures us that it will happen because, like ourselves, our world, physical creation, is also destined to die, and, like us, it intuits its mortality and groans under that sentence, aching to be set free from its limitations and become immortal.

Science agrees. It tells us that physical creation is mortal, that the sun is burning out, that energy is ever-so-slowly decreasing and that the earth as we know it will someday die. The earth is as mortal as we are and so if it’s to have a future it needs to be saved by Something or Someone from outside itself. That Something and Someone are revealed in the mystery of the incarnation within which God takes on physical flesh in Christ in order to save the world – and what he came to save was not just us, the people living on this earth, but rather, “the world”, the planet itself, and everything on it.

Jesus assured us that nothing is ever ultimately lost. No hair falls from someone’s head and no sparrow falls from the sky and simply disappears forever, as if it had never been. God created, loves, cares for, and ultimately resurrects every bit of creation for all eternity – including a beloved dog.

The Word Became Flesh

The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales have dedicated 2020 to be a year of focus on the Bible and ‘The God Who Speaks’. The prologue from John’s Gospel is read on Christmas day and famously speaks about ‘the Word’, and so we will be using these weeks of Advent, which begin the Year of the Word, to prepare to hear John’s familiar text in a new way. How do the scriptures for the Sundays of Advent invite us to a deeper engagement with what John will tell us about ‘the Word’ on Christmas day? Mark Aloysius SJ welcomes us into the divine space that exists in between the readings for the fourth Sunday of Advent, in which we meet ‘God who waits patiently for the right moment for the incarnation of the Word, and a God who hurries to give us grace.’

Mark Aloysius SJ is a Jesuit of the Malaysia-Singapore Region. He resides at Campion Hall, Oxford, where he is currently working on a doctorate on the question of desire in Hannah Arendt and Augustine. He is also a member of the editorial board of Thinking Faith.

This article is taken from the ThinkingFaith.org website where you can find a wide range of articles by clicking here

There is a dramatic difference in Gerard Manley Hopkins’ last sketch of a waterfall in Lord Massey’s Domain, Dublin, dated 22 April 1889, in comparison with all of his earlier sketches in a book kept in the archives of Campion Hall, Oxford. In his previous sketches, Hopkins seems interested in illuminating the structure of things: strong trunks holding a tree up to the sky, the outlines of a wooded forest concealing a deep darkness within, or the soft contours of a nose on the face of a dog. Like most of Hopkins’ poems, his sketches reveal an interest in what is within and in between, a fascination at getting at the ‘dearest freshness deep down things’ (God’s Grandeur). For there in the depths of reality, Hopkins truly believed that he would find God.

But in this last sketch, drawn just a few months before he died, Hopkins etches roots, trees and water in much darker ink. There is more flurried movement and activity within the elements in the picture and the water between them. As he prepares to die, is Hopkins gripped with a fear of not being sufficiently prepared to meet the God he sought to understand all his life?

II.

Our readings this Sunday present us with two figures who are met by God and are offered a promise by God. In our first reading from the prophet Isaiah[i], we are told that God speaks directly to King Ahaz of Judah. In the midst of political anxiety, as two nations to the north (Israel and Syria) seek to wage war against Judah, Ahaz considers an alliance with Assyria, the superpower to the north. However, this alliance with a greater power portents doom for Judah.

While Ahaz is anxiously weighing his schemes in preparation for imminent war, God speaks to him, bidding him to ask for a sign. Ahaz’s reply is polite and pious: ‘I will not put the Lord to the test’. Indeed, Ahaz wants to secure his future, and the future of his people, without reference to God at all. His reply belies the faithlessness of a people who have constructed a political reality dependent on the techniques of manipulation, a kingdom completely devoid of trust in God’s care. In spite of this polite refusal, God still offers a sign of peace in the midst of war. This sign is a child born of a maiden, a child who bears the name Immanuel. Our first reading ends tragically with the complete disregard of this sign from God.

In contrast with the king who refuses God’s bidding, we are presented with Joseph[ii], a man of meagre means who responds with graciousness and generosity to God. Like Ahaz, Joseph receives divine guidance in the midst of anxiety as he considers what he might do with Mary, who is found to be pregnant just before their marriage. Unlike Ahaz who is addressed directly, Joseph meets an angel bearing God’s message in the uncertain domain of a dreamscape. But Joseph is not afflicted with the haziness of sleep, and his response upon waking is swift and decisive. God’s angel promises him the birth of the long-awaited saviour, so Joseph changes his plans and takes Mary and her unborn child into his home. In the rest of Matthew’s Gospel, we hear so very little of Joseph. The only other time that we hear of him is just before the Holy Family’s flight as refugees into exile, when Joseph places his trust unhesitatingly in God’s word, which he hears once more in a dream.

Between promise and fulfilment, there lies a long gap in time. Our readings this Sunday insert us firmly within that gap. Most of Advent we have been reminded of the virtue of patience in our waiting for God. We have been told that patience is the virtue of living without grumbling or anxiety, and that this waiting is not dead time but that something is happening within us as our faith and hope in the Lord deepens.

And yet, there is some other posture quite distinct from patience that we are invited to learn from our readings this Sunday about how we might live in this gap between promise and fulfilment. Rather than adopt a posture of polite refusal to God, of not daring to ask God for signs of God’s presence and to trust that God will indeed come to us, we are invited instead to be eager, to cultivate deep longing in our hearts for Immanuel, the God who is always with us. Polite refusals to God can only lead to dead time and withered hearts. However, eagerness for the coming of the Lord brings about decisive changes to our lives. It makes us daring and creative, willing to take risks for the sake of those placed in our care. Indeed, this eager longing is borne and nourished by God’s love.

By learning to be patient and to long eagerly, two seemingly opposing movements that our readings invite us to cultivate, our hearts learn to stretch before the mystery that is unfolding before us. We are invited to meditate on the God who waits patiently for the right moment for the incarnation of the Word. At the same time, we are also shown a God who hurries to give us grace. Perhaps only when our hearts are stretched in this manner by patience and eager longing can we hope to truly share in the divine life.

III.

Hopkins seems to intimate to us what he was trying to depict in his last sketch in an unfinished poem on waterfalls called ‘Epithalamion’, written in the same period. I leave you with his words, which make the case that it was not fear that provoked deeper and darker etchings of a waterfall. Rather, it was eager longing that guided his pen to shape words and image to depict a deeper sharing in the divine life in the movement of water between rocks and roots.

Enough now; since the sacred matter that I mean

I should be wronging longer leaving it to float

Upon this only gambolling and echoing-of-earth note –

What is … the delightful dene?

Wedlock. What is water? Spousal love.

[i] Isaiah 7:10-14

[ii] Matthew 1:18-24

Weekly Newsletter

Thursday 19 December 2019

4th Sunday of Advent (Year A)