God saw the world falling to ruin because of fear and immediately acted to call it back with love. God invited it by grace, preserved it by love, & embraced it with compassion.
Peter Chrysologus
Day 10 – Cry of the poor
Yes, the cry and the anguish of the poor
trigger off our cry and anguish;
we touch our point of pain and helpness.
But then we discover the new name of God,
the name revealed by Jesus,
of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit;
the Father will send the “paraclete.”
It is a beautiful name, meaning literally
“the one who answers the cry or the call.”
Like a mother
who takes in her arms her weeping child.
She is a paraclete.
The name of God is “the one who answers the cry.”
Mercy and misery embrace!
We can only know the incredible mercy and love of God
if we accept to decend into our misery
and there cry out to him.
Then he will answer,
“Here I am, Beloved,”
and will enfold is in his arms with a long embrace.
Jean Vanier
Day 9 – The beginning of the end
The Advent mystery is the beginning of the end of all in us that is not yet Christ.
Day 8 – Rights
That man say we can’t have as much rights as a man “cause Christ wasn’t a woman.” Where did you Christ come from? From God and a woman. Man had nothing to do with it.
Marketplace Grace
Day 7 – Truth resounds
Above the clamor of our violence
your word of truth resounds,
O God of majesty and power,
Over nations enshrouded in despair
your justice dawns.
Grant your household
a discerning spirit and a watchful eye
to perceive the hour in which we live.
Hasten the advent of that day
when the weapons of war shall be
banished,
our deeds of darkness case off,
and all your scattered children gathered
into one.
Prayer Sunday of Advent
Day 6 – Love preceeds
Face to face with our limits,
Blinking before the frightful
Stare of our fraility,
Promise rises
Like a posse of clever maids
Who do not fear the dark
Because their readiness
lights the search. Their oil becomes
the measure of their love,
Their ability to wait —
An indication of their
Capacity to trust and take a chance.
Without the caution or predictability
Of knowing day or hour,
They fall back on that only
Of which they can be sure:
Love preceeds them,
Before it
No door will ever close.
T. J. O’Gorman
Day 5 – Ask not, doubt not
Ask not, doubt not. You have, my heart, already chosen the joy of Advent. As a force against your own uncertainity, bravely tell yourself, “It is the Advent of the great God.” Say this with faith and love, and then both the past of your life, which has become holy, and your life’s eternal, boundless future will draw together in the now of this world. For then into the heart comes the one who is Advent, the boundless future who is already in the process of coming, the Lord, who has already come into the time of the fresh to redeem it.
Karl Rahner
Day 4 – In actual life
The reign of God, the eschatological liberation of the world, is already in progress, is already being established. It takes shape in concrete modifications of actual life.
Leonardo Boff
Day 3 – Give of yourself
Here is your Advent: Make the Christ who has come a reality, a living light in your life and in some other life. Give of yourself … to one dark soul … with no conditions.
Walter Burghart