Christian Art | Jesus Christ The King | Advent
Office Of Readings | Advent Monday Week 1 | From A Pastoral Letter By Saint Charles Borromeo, Bishop | The Season Of Advent
‘The season of Advent.’
Saint Charles Borromeo reflects on Advent as the ‘acceptable time’, drawing from Saint Paul’s language to describe a season charged with divine initiative. His tone is pastoral and earnest, urging the faithful not merely to recall a historical event but to participate anew in the grace that Christ’s coming has unleashed. For Saint Charles, the whole mystery of salvation is concentrated in this season: the Father’s mercy, the sending of the Son, the overthrow of Satan’s tyranny, the revelation of truth, the training in virtue, and the inheritance of eternal life. Advent is therefore not only a commemoration but a living conduit of God’s saving work.
Saint Charles emphasises that Christ’s first coming in the flesh is inseparably linked to his present and future comings. The power of the Incarnation must be received again each year, for Christ continues to come spiritually to those who remove obstacles to his presence. Advent is not nostalgia; it is readiness for a visitation that is always imminent. This places responsibility on the believer: through faith, the sacraments, and obedience, we must allow the grace Christ has already earned to become effective in us. Saint Charles understands Advent as a school of desire, where the Church trains our hearts to expect Christ with the fervour of prophets and patriarchs.
The Church is a tender and attentive mother. Through the liturgy—its hymns, rites, and sacred texts—she forms within us the same longing that filled the saints of old. She teaches grateful remembrance for the first coming and vigilant preparation for the second. Saint Charles implicitly suggests that Advent is a remedy for spiritual negligence: by entering more deeply into the season, we cultivate the interior disposition that welcomes Christ ‘at any hour and moment’.
From A Pastoral Letter By Saint Charles Borromeo, Bishop | The Season Of Advent
Beloved, now is the acceptable time spoken of by the Spirit, the day of salvation, peace and reconciliation: the great season of Advent. This is the time eagerly awaited by the patriarchs and prophets, the time that holy Simeon rejoiced at last to see. This is the season that the Church has always celebrated with special solemnity. We too should always observe it with faith and love, offering praise and thanksgiving to the Father for the mercy and love he has shown us in this mystery. In his infinite love for us, though we were sinners, he sent his only Son to free us from the tyranny of Satan, to summon us to heaven, to welcome us into its innermost recesses, to show us truth itself, to train us in right conduct, to plant within us the seeds of virtue, to enrich us with the treasures of his grace, and to make us children of God and heirs of eternal life.
Each year, as the Church recalls this mystery, she urges us to renew the memory of the great love God has shown us. This holy season teaches us that Christ’s coming was not only for the benefit of his contemporaries; his power has still to be communicated to us all. We shall share his power, if, through holy faith and the sacraments, we willingly accept the grace Christ earned for us, and live by that grace and in obedience to Christ.
The Church asks us to understand that Christ, who came once in the flesh, is prepared to come again. When we remove all obstacles to his presence he will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts, bringing with him the riches of his grace.
In her concern for our salvation, our loving mother the Church uses this holy season to teach us through hymns, canticles and other forms of expression, of voice or ritual, used by the Holy Spirit. She shows us how grateful we should be for so great a blessing, and how to gain its benefit: our hearts should be as much prepared for the coming of Christ as if he were still to come into this world. The same lesson is given us for our imitation by the words and example of the holy men of the Old Testament.
Christian Prayer With Jesus
Lord Jesus Christ,
as your Church enters the holy season of Advent,
prepare our hearts to receive you with the same longing
that filled the prophets and patriarchs of old.
Remove from us every obstacle to your presence,
cleanse what is sinful, heal what is wounded,
and strengthen what is weak.
You came once in humility to free us from the power of sin;
come now in grace to dwell within us,
and come at last in glory to lead us home to the Father.
May the memory of your first coming
kindle in us a deeper faith,
and may the hope of your coming again
make us steadfast in obedience,
joyful in gratitude,
and watchful in prayer.
For you live and reign for ever and ever.
Amen.
Glossary Of Christian Terms
Advent – The liturgical season of four weeks that prepares for the celebration of Christ’s birth and for his second coming in glory. A time of watchfulness, repentance, and hope.
Incarnation – The mystery by which the Son of God took on human flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary for our salvation.
Satan – A created spiritual being who rebelled against God; a fallen angel who opposes God’s work and seeks to lead humanity into sin.
Grace – God’s free and undeserved gift of his own life and help, making us capable of living as his children and achieving eternal life.
Sacraments – Visible signs instituted by Christ that confer grace. They are the ordinary means by which God applies Christ’s saving work to believers.
Patriarchs and Prophets – Old Testament figures who prepared the way for Christ: patriarchs such as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Malachi.
Tyranny of Satan – A traditional expression describing the state of humanity under the power of sin before the redemption accomplished by Christ.
Obedience to Christ – The believer’s submission of heart, mind, and actions to the teachings and will of Jesus, made possible by grace.
Spiritual indwelling – The presence of Christ in the soul through faith, charity, and the sacraments; not merely symbolic but a real interior communion.
Heirs of eternal life – A biblical expression meaning that through Christ we have been adopted as God’s children and destined to share in his everlasting kingdom.
Sometimes, when I read my Bible, I pause in the reading and say to myself: ‘This bit’s real.’ It would be fair to say, I have issues with Mary, because, contrary to what we are taught to say, Mary isn’t my mother. Rather: Mum is. One bit of the Bible-text says this: And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people were saying, “He is beside himself.” … And his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside they sent to him and called him. And a crowd was sitting about him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking around on those who sat about him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother.” (Mark 3: 21; 31-35.) Here she comes. She is in considerable distress. I can imagine that. I can relate to that. To save her boy from whatever he’s got himself into this time. And you’re not telling me there isn’t something inside that. Her boy is beside himself. Radical. Radicalized. Radicalizing. A misunderstood word. /ˈradɪk(ə)l/ adjective & noun. 1 Forming the root, basis, or foundation; original, primary. 2a Inherent in the nature of a thing or person; fundamental. b Of action, change, an idea: going to the root or origin; far-reaching, thorough. c Advocating thorough or far-reaching change. d Characterized by departure from tradition; progressive; unorthodox. ‘He has a demon! And he is mad!’ – thus ‘the Jews’. (e.g. John 10: 20.) Come home! It’s all she wants. His family want him back now. But it is an exclusive cult: there is an inside and there is an outside; and on the outside, they are not meant to understand, lest they be converted. He has defined himself as different from anything she was. Only at the end does Jesus say to his Mum – and with savage, bitter irony: ‘Woman, behold your son.’ And then he dies. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. We ask that we might find Mary in our hearts as a Yes! place for Jesus. It is also recommended that we pray to Jesus that we may be further in oneness with Mary. It is self-emptying, such that we only exist insofar as we are responsive to God’s Word. * Last term, and put-out to pasture, the old Archbishop Emeritus came over to stay for a few days and did the odd class with us. He spoke of Yes! as the meaning of Mary’s virginity. And we were not very nice about him. One or two took umbrage. One or two got the hump. In a sense, his Grace, the Arch, basically wanted to move anyone he’d ever known from a high-place – a mountain – received theological ‘truth’ – to an imminent, human plane. Earthing the spiritual. Recalibrating metrics of life’s believability toward a spiritual sense of things. He might have asked the impermissible question: what happened? His Grace described it. God’s love as a cloud. This descended upon Mary – and subsumed her. Within the cloud, Mary capitulated utterly. She became only and purely a response to God’s love. As he spoke, the Arch cradled her. He carried her in his lap – in his hands. His Grace was a consecrated bishop. He was faith. He sat squat, a rounded man, hands cupped and ankles crossed, fingers interlocked, with parted thighs. Rumpled, washed, speckled. A lifetime’s skin… There could be no doubt His Grace spoke through long-term personal relationship with Mary. It was Julian went for him: ‘So are you saying Mary was a Virgin? Or are you not saying Mary was a Virgin?’ Nasty. No, it wasn’t pretty. Julian twisting his silver ring. For a moment, what Julian had said to the Arch simply failed to communicate. No, for a moment, that dumped on the air meant nothing. Then His Grace said: ‘There is a range of possible meanings we may understand in the question of Mary’s virginity. For example, there are understandings of the word virginity entailed in the action of giving birth.’ Julian said: ‘Duh! So had she had sex or hadn’t she?’ Trigger words. No, it wasn’t pretty. On that went for a little while. At length, Julian’s point seemed reluctantly conceded. Then the Arch told us a new story, an additionally human event, the more to baffle us. Controversially, he told us that Mary could not have been Joseph’s first wife, for this would not have been the way of things in the society of that time. His belief was that Joseph must have taken Mary into his household through pity. That would be normal, he said, for Joseph to bring a young, vulnerable girl, who is about to have a baby, within his protection, not meaning to enjoy with her marital relations, but through kindness. ‘And this story of the inn and stable,’ the Archbishop said, ‘it can’t have been like that really. Joseph has travelled with Mary to stay with his family, at home in Bethlehem, and they don’t want Mary in their house, for reasons which I am sure we can understand. It must have been there was considerable resistance to Mary. But Mary gives birth, and who can resist a baby? That’s what happened. It must have been. ‘I’m convinced that must have been how it happened really.’ Later that term, toward the beginning of Advent, we met boys who had been here before, in Valladolid, and now were in regular seminary. They had heard and recited verbatim all the Archbishop had said to them. Their spot-on impressions of each of the fathers were scathing. […]
Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount has been related through the whole of chapters five, six and seven of his Gospel. Jesus concludes his teachings with today’s Bible verses, which carry both a promise and a warning. Commencing with the Beatitudes, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has presented to the people, toward the start of his ministry, a most beautiful, transformative understanding of God’s call to us to be with Him and to live according to the real, inner truth of the law [ … ]
![<script async src="https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js?client=ca-pub-9927536161081875"
crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<!-- In Body Text -->
<ins class="adsbygoogle"
style="display:block"
data-ad-client="ca-pub-9927536161081875"
data-ad-slot="1055374834"
data-ad-format="auto"
data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>
<script>
(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
</script>](https://wordaloud.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/034-psalm-king-james-audio-kjv-bible-word-aloud-001.jpg)
Psalm 34 expresses faith, gratitude and unwavering trust in the divine providence of the Lord. In the psalm, we encounter celebration of God’s goodness and a resounding call to praise God in all circumstances [ … ]
