way out west

Finding new hope?

One of the prayers for today From the Mozarabic Sacramentary (tenth century) seemed apposite!

Father God, it is hard to hope each morning, to look forward to new treasures and mercies, discovered when we are alive to your presence in all that we encounter.
Open our minds to the endless possibilities of life and power and thought.
Help us to meet you in our everyday life, in our anxieties and difficulties, for you are there with us in our pain and sorrow.
Lift us from despair to new hope.
Restore and renew us each returning day, so that we may find joy in our journey with you. Amen

The Nativity of John the Baptist

Today is the feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist, the only celebration of the birth other than the birth of Christ himself... Significantly it is 6 months before Christmas Eve!  John is known as the "precursor" or "forerunner" of the coming Christ, he announces the coming of Christ and in some ways sets the tone of the ministry of Christ.  The Orthodox Church sees John as the last of the Old Testament Prophets, sealing the old order and heralding the new.  Saint Augustine of Hippo wrote...

The Church observes the birth of John as in some way sacred; and you will not find any other of the great men of old whose birth we celebrate officially. We celebrate John’s, as we celebrate Christ’s. This point cannot be passed over in silence, and if I may not perhaps be able to explain it in the way that such an important matter deserves, it is still worth thinking about it a little more deeply and fruitfully than usual.

John is born of an old woman who is barren; Christ is born of a young woman who is a virgin. That John will be born is not believed, and his father is struck dumb; that Christ will be born is believed, and he is conceived by faith.  John, it seems, has been inserted as a kind of boundary between the two Testaments, the Old and the New. That he is somehow or other a boundary is something that the Lord himself indicates when he says, The Law and the prophets were until John. So he represents the old and heralds the new. Because he represents the old, he is born of an elderly couple; because he represents the new, he is revealed as a prophet in his mother’s womb. You will remember that, before he was born, at Mary’s arrival he leapt in his mother’s womb. Already he had been marked out there, designated before he was born; it was already shown whose forerunner he would be, even before he saw him. These are divine matters, and exceed the measure of human frailty.

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Almighty God, by whose providence your servant John the Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of your Son our Savior by preaching repentance: Make us so to follow his teaching and holy life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching; and, following his example, constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen

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More on the Liturgy after the Liturgy

"the liturgy within the Liturgy", is essential for the Church, but it has to be understood in all its dimensions. There is a double movement in the Liturgy: on the one hand, the assembling of the people of God to perform the memorial of the death and resurrection of our Lord "until He comes again". It also manifests and realizes the process by which "the cosmos is becoming ecclesia". Therefore the preparation for Liturgy takes place not only at the personal spiritual level, but also at the level of human historical and natural realities. In preparing for Liturgy, the Christian starts a spiritual journey which affects everything in his life: family, properties, authority, position, and social relations. It re-orientates the direction of his entire human existence towards its sanctification by the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, renewed by the Holy Communion and the Holy Spirit, the members of the Church are sent to be authentic testimony to Jesus Christ in the world. The mission of the Church rests upon the radiating and transforming power of the Liturgy. It is a stimulus in sending out the people of God to the world to confess the Gospel and to be involved in man's liberation.

Ion Bria

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