Saint Anselm expresses a very personal kind of prayer — not analysing God from a distance, but putting into words the restless desire of a believer who knows that God is real, yet not yet fully seen. For Anselm, faith naturally awakens longing, and longing draws the soul deeper into God [ … ]
Saint Cyril of Alexandria interprets the prophecy of Haggai as a vision of the Church’s universal fulfilment in Christ. When he writes that ‘our Saviour came and appeared as a divine temple’, he identifies Jesus Christ himself as the true dwelling-place of God among men — the reality of which the old Jerusalem temple was only a shadow. The worship of the old covenant, confined to one people and one sanctuary, is surpassed by the worship of the new covenant, offered everywhere in spirit and in truth [ … ]
In this homily, Saint Augustine draws us into a tension at the heart of Christian life: we are invited to sing alleluia, but we are called to sing it in anxiety, in trial, in temptation. The alleluia of this present life is real but fragile, hopeful but trembling. It reflects the condition of a people who know they belong to God, yet still live in a world where danger surrounds them and weakness remains within [ … ]
