Advent Reflection

From Anglican Mainstream.

For John, a Carmelite Friar, the spiritual life is a continual process of growth or regression. It is never static. Growth in the spiritual life is an integrated development that implies a firm, unrelenting, and enthusiastic search for union with God. It is not a dissipated pursuit of several goals at once. This echoes the themes artciluated in the Epistle from Peter appointed for today.

Meditation In the second lesson from Peter the call to the Christian vocation  rooted in the Grace and Peace  of Christ  is a difficult message in a season when such important vocations are reduced to a Christmas special on TV for too many people. Both Peter and John of the Cross remind us that true peace comes only through a relationship and ongoing fellowship with God through Jesus Christ. Isn’t that what this Advent Season invites us to?

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Another Advent Reflection from Biblegateway.com

In medieval Europe, there were cathedral services each evening leading up to Christmas Eve. Each service would begin with an antiphon, a choral call to worship. There were seven “Great O Antiphons,” beginning with the Latin word vini(“come”), followed by the Latin words for “O Wisdom,” “O Lord,” “O Branch of Jesse,” “O Key of David,” “O Dayspring,” “O King of Nations,” and “O Emmanuel.” These choral prayers were rooted in messianic titles used by the prophets in the Old Testament, pleas for God to come. During the 1800s, various English translations of the “Great O Antiphons” were made. This well-loved British version is the work of Thomas Alexander Lacey, who was born December 20, 1853.

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Albert Mohler: The Retreat from Marriage — A Recipe for Disaster

If you were determined to consign a population to poverty and any number of social pathologies, how might you do it? If your design is to extend the effects of these pathologies and pains to successive generations, what might be your plan? The answer to both of these questions is clear. Just marginalize marriage.

Economists report that the wealth deficit of the unmarried as compared to the consistently married is as much as 75 percent. The unmarried are less healthy, less wealthy, and less stable in relationships as compared to married couples. And, to no one’s surprise, the ill effects of this condition are extended immediately to the children of unmarried unions and to generations to come.

In other words, it is hard to imagine a plot to bring harm and unhappiness to human lives that can compare, in social and economic terms, to the marginalization of marriage.

Read this thoughtful and thought-provoking piece.