Light

Redeem us with your invading Light

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Light on the Rotunda by Lawrence OP vis Flickr
 
You are our eternal salvation,
The unfailing light of the world.
Light everlasting,
You are truly our redemption.
Grieving that the human race was perishing
    through the tempter’s power,
    without leaving the heights
You came to the depths in your loving kindness.
Readily taking our humanity by Your gracious will,
You saved all earthly creatures, long since lost,
Restoring joy to the world.
Redeem our souls and bodies, O Christ,
    and so possess us as Your shining dwellings.
By Your first coming, make us righteous;
At your second coming, set us free:
So that, when the world is filled with light
    and you judge all things,
We may be clad in spotless robes
    and follow in Your steps, O King,
    Into the heavenly hall.

Unknown Author, 10th century
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John 1:5

The light shines in the darkness
    and the darkness has not overcome it.
 
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How have you seen God’s everlasting light transform the world?
In what area of your life are you waiting for God’s light to shine?

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Send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations

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Savault Chapel, France, Benh LIEU SONG, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
 
Lord Jesus,
Master of both the light and the darkness,
    send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas.
We who have so much to do
    seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day.
We who are anxious over many things
    look forward to your coming among us.
We who are blessed in so many ways
    long for the complete joy of your kingdom.
We whose hearts are heavy
    seek the joy of your presence.
We are your people,
    walking in darkness,
    yet seeking the light.
To you we say, “Come Lord Jesus!”

Henri Nouwen 1932 – 1996 Dutch Catholic priest and author
source
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Isaiah 42:6, 16

I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
    I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
    to be a covenant for the people
    and a light for the Gentiles

I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
    along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them
    and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do;
    I will not forsake them.
 
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What is one way that you can prepare your heart this Advent season? 

Be with us in our darkness

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Journey of the Three Magi to Bethlehem, Leonaert Bramer, via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
We wait in the darkness,
expectantly, longingly, anxiously, thoughtfully.
 
The darkness is our friend.
 
In the darkness of the womb,
we have all been nurtured and protected.
 
In the darkness of the womb
the Christ-child was made ready for the journey into light.
 
It is only in the darkness
that we can see the splendour of the universe –
blankets of stars, the solitary glowings of the planets.
 
It was the darkness that allowed the Magi to find the star
that guided them to where the Christ-child lay.
 
In the darkness of the night,
desert people find relief from the cruel relentless heat of the sun.
 
In the blessed desert darkness
Mary and Joseph were able to flee with the infant Jesus
to safety in Egypt.
 
In the darkness of sleep,
we are soothed and restored, healed and renewed.
 
In the darkness of sleep, dreams rise up.
God spoke to Joseph and the wise men through dreams.
God is speaking still.
 
Sometimes in the solitude of the darkness
our fears and concerns, our hopes and visions
rise to the surface.
We come face to face with ourselves
and with the road that lies ahead of us.
And in that same darkness
we find companionship for the journey.
 
In that same darkness
we sometimes allow ourselves to wonder and worry
whether the human race is going to survive.
 
And then, in the darkness
we know that you are with us, O God,
yet still we await your coming.
 
In the darkness that contains both our hopelessness and our hope,
we watch for a sign of God’s hope.
 
For you are with us, O God,
in darkness and in light.
 
James Hawes, Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa, New Zealand 
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If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
 even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.
 
_____________________
 
Where is the darkest place that you have seen God move?
What did God do?

Come Lord Jesus

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Lindisfarne Island, Chris Combe from York, UK, CC BY 2.0  Wikimedia Commons 
 
Come, Lord Jesus,
Come as King.
Rule in our hearts,
Come as love.
Rule in our minds,
Come as peace.
Rule in our actions,
Come as power.
Rule in our days,
Come as joy.
Rule in our darkness,
Come as light.
Rule in our bodies,
Come as health.
Rule in our labors,
Come as hope.
Thy Kingdom come
Among us.

David Adam 1936-2020 British Anglican priest, served at Lindisfarne
 
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The people who walked in darkness
    have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
    on them has light shone.

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love for the Eternal Trinity

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The Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine of Siena, Giovanni di Paolo, via Wikimedia Commons

 
O Eternal God! O Eternal Trinity!
Through the union of your divine nature you have made so precious
    the blood of your only begotten Son!
O eternal Trinity, you are as deep a mystery as the sea,
    in whom the more I seek, the more I find;
    and the more I find, the more I seek.
For even immersed in the depths of you,
    my soul is never satisfied, always famished and hungering for you,
    eternal Trinity, wishing and desiring to see you, the true light.
 
O eternal Trinity, with the light of understanding
    I have tasted and seen the depths of your mystery
                         and the beauty of your creation.
In seeing myself in you, I have seen that I will become like you.
 
O eternal Father, from your power and your wisdom
    clearly you have given me a share of that wisdom
    which belongs to your only begotten Son.
And truly the Holy Spirit,
    who proceeds from You, Father and Son,
    has given to me the desire to love You.
 
Catherine of Siena, 1347 – 1380, Italian Dominican mystic
 
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Hear me as I pray, O Lord.
    Be merciful and answer me!
My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.”
    And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.”

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Praise to God in heaven

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
The Throne In Heaven, by Davin Arries, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
 
 
How small a part of you do we see, God?
Only a partial picture.
 
Who can understand the thunder of your power?
Touching the Almighty, we cannot comprehend you.
You are excellent in power, judgment , and justice.
You are exalted far above all blessing and praise.
 
You have prepared your throne of glory in the heavens, high and lifted up.
Before you the seraphim cover their faces.
 
And in compassion to us you hold back the face of that throne,
    spreading a cloud upon it.
 
You make your angels spirits, and your ministers a flame of fire.
Thousands of them minster to you, 
    and ten thousand times ten thousand stand before you,
    to do what you ask.
They excel in strength, and obey your word.
 
And we come by faith, hope and holy love into spiritual communion
    with the innumerable company of angels,
    and the spirits of just people made perfect.
We come to the general assembly and church of the firstborn,
    in the heavenly Jerusalem.
 
You are worthy, O Lord, to receive blessing, and honor, and glory, and power.
For you have created all things.
You created them to do your will and to praise you.
 
We worship the one who made heaven and earth,
    the sea and the fountains of waters.
The one who spoke and it was done.
Who commanded, and it stood fast.
The one who said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
 
And you made it all very good, and it continues this day according to your word,
    for everything serves you.
 
The day is yours, the night is yours.
You have prepared the light and the sun.
You have set all the borders of the earth.
You have made summer and winter.
You uphold all things by the word of your power,
    and by you all things exist.
 
The earth is full of your riches; so is the great and wide sea.
The eyes of all wait upon you, and you give them their food in due season.
You open your hand and satisfy the needs of every living thing.
Amen.
 
Matthew Henry, 1662 – 1714 British Presbyterian minister and author
 
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But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, 
    the heavenly Jerusalem. 
You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, 
    to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. 
You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 
    to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, 
    and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
 

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seeing Easter through fresh eyes

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
The Women at the Sepulchre, Benjamin West, Brooklyn Museum
 
Lord,
as if the shock of Good Friday wasn’t enough for your closest followers…

We feel for those faithful women who went to visit you
just after sunrise on that Sunday morning,
and fled, trembling and bewildered and afraid.

You were not there.

Forgive us when we sanitise your death.
And forgive us, too, if we belittle your resurrection!

Please help us to see this most incredible of moments,
this greatest twist of any plot,
through fresh eyes,
on this bewildering, yet most joyful of mornings.

Help us to see it through the tear-filled eyes of those women.

Help us to see it through the disbelieving eyes of the men,
some of whom came running.

And help us to glimpse it through your own eyes,
which must have blinked into the early morning sunlight
of that first Easter Day,
from out of complete, and utter, darkness,
and refocused,
and creased, with a smile.

You are risen indeed.
 
 
Brian Draper, Christian writer in the UK 
 
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On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, 
    the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 
They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 
    but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 
While they were wondering about this, 
    suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 
In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, 
    but the men said to them, 
        “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 
          He is not here; he has risen! 
          Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 
           ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, 
             be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” 
Then they remembered his words.
 

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Prayer on Good Friday

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
photo by Murilo Soares via pexels
 
Prayer on Good Friday.
Which isn’t good at all.
One of the great misnomers of all time.
It’s bleak, haunted, immensely sad.
It rivets and ravages me every year 
    as I sit hidden behind a post-beam
    in the balcony of the chapel,
    where no one can see me weeping
    at the poor broken Yeshua,
    betrayed by his best friends,
    beaten by sneering cops,
    blood dripping into His eyes,
    grilled by a police chief who couldn’t care less
        about justice and mercy and only wants to evade blame
        for a matter he considers minor at best.
 
Yet it wasn’t minor at all,
     and somehow it turns on that harrowing day long ago.
A mysterious young man from a country village,
    causing an epic political and civil ruckus in the city.
A murderous mob, angry religious Brahmins, potential colonial unrest
    that will not look good at headquarters.
Gnomic answers by the calm young man when interrogated.
Poor Peter bitterly berating himself for his cowardice,
    and which one of us would have done better?
The apostles frightened, the sound of hammers 
    nailing the young man to a cross,
    the lowering darkness, 
    the murmurs of fear through the city as the sun is blotted out.
Veronica’s veil and Simon’s shoulders, Simon the African,
    did compassion surge and make him step forth,
    or was he shoved into legend by a soldier?
 
The gaunt young man sagging toward death; 
    His quiet blessing of a thief;
    His last words to his mother;
        one last desperate cry;
    He thirsts, He prays, He dies.
 
And in the chapel not another word, not another sound;
    and soon we exit silently, and go our ways,
    for once without the tang of Euchaist on our tongues,
    for once without a cheerful chaff for friends and handshakes all round;
    and no matter how bright the rest of the day,
        how brilliant the late afternoon, 
        how redolent the new flowers,
        how wild the sunset over the river
    you shiver a little; not just for Him, but for all of us,
    His children, face to face with despair.
And so silently home to pray for light emerging miraculously
    where it seemed all dark.
And so: amen.
 
Brian Doyle, 1956 – 2017, Catholic author from Oregon
A Book of Uncommon Prayer
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It was now about noon, 
    and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon,
    for the sun stopped shining. 
And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. 
Jesus called out with a loud voice, 
    “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.”
When he had said this, he breathed his last.
 

wash me with your tears

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
Jesus Wept by Daniel Bonnell
 
Lord, we show you our wounds so that you may heal us.
And even if we do not, you know,
    and you wait to hear our voice.
Do away our scars by tears,
    like the woman in the gospel who washed your feet with hers.
 
You know how to help the weak,
    when there is no one who can prepare the feast,
    or bring the ointment,
    or carry along a spring of living water.
You come yourself to the grave.
 
So come to this grave of mine, Lord Jesus,
    that you would wash me with your tears.
With my dry eyes I have no such tears
    as to be able to wash away my offenses.
With your tears I will be saved, if I am worthy of your tears.
 
With them you will call me out of the tomb of this body and say, 
    “Come forth.”
Then my thoughts will not be kept pent up
    in the narrow limits of this body,
    but may go forth to you, and move to the light,
    that I may think no more on the works of darkness,
    but on the works of light.
 
Ambrose of Milan, c.339-397, Bishop of Milan
 
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When Jesus saw her weeping,
    and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping,
    he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.
“Where have you laid him?” he asked.
“Come and see, Lord,” they replied.
Jesus wept.
Then the Jews said, “See how he loved him!”
 
When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, 
    “Lazarus, come out!”
The dead man came out, 
    his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, 
    and a cloth around his face.
Jesus said to them, 
    “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

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to sweep out the corners

/ Eric Mathews / Leave a comment
image by Louis Henri de Fontenay
 
 
God, we come
with hesitant steps
and uncertain motives
to sweep out the corners
where sin has accumulated,
and uncover the ways
we have strayed from Your truth.
 
Expose the empty and barren places
where we don’t allow you to enter.
Reveal our half-hearted struggles
where we have been indifferent
to the suffering of others.
 
Nurture the faint stirrings of new life,
where your spirit has begun to grow.
Let your healing light transform us
into the image of Your Son.
For You alone can bring new life
and make us whole.
 
Christine Sine, Australian physician and contemplative activist
 
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Search me, O God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
    and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

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