Wisdom Eucharist for Advent
Sunday 3rd December, 2023
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed …The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus …
… And Mary said, “Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.
– Luke 1:26-38 (NRSV)
… And the Word was made flesh
and dwelt among us,
full of grace and truth.
– John 1:14a
Make ready for the Christ, whose smile, like lightening,
Sets free the song of everlasting glory,
That now sleeps, in your paper flesh,
like dynamite.
—Thomas Merton, “The Victory”
Before there was to be a beginning
there had to be a time for it.
Who knows how long,
that abyss of longing?
And then when Your longing deepened to fullness,
having made a time for it,
You made a space for an Other,
and having nothing beyond Yourself
with which to make a space
You made space in Yourself,
an absence making room for us,
which we complain about bitterly,
not understanding that the absence
is what allows us,
and which in fact,
if we so dare to make a space in ourselves—
thus, like you, becoming both less and more—
we enter into, which we call prayer,
and perhaps even faith, or at least love:
to make room in ourselves for another.
– Steve Garnaas-Holmes
If you want the Virgin will come
walking down the road
pregnant with the holy, and say,
“I need shelter for the night,
please take me inside your heart,
my time is so close.”
Then, under the roof of your soul,
you will witness the sublime intimacy, the divine,
the Christ taking birth forever,
as she grasps your hand for help,
for each of us is the midwife of God, each of us.
Yet there, under the dome of your being
does creation come into existence eternally,
through your womb, dear pilgrim
— the sacred womb in your soul,
as God grasps our arms for help;
for each of us is His beloved servant never far.
If you want, the Virgin will come
walking down the street pregnant with Light and sing
–St. John of the Cross (1542 – 14 December 1591)
Mother of God, Light in All darkness
Divine Mother,
Living Flame of Love,
ignite my heart with the flame that blazes in the night
and never consumes the fuel that feeds it.
Let me be the fuel, Blessed one.
You who led my ancestors through the wilderness,
Light my way home to the place where
my ancestors are waiting for me.
Queen of Peace, whisper your healing secrets in my ear,
And I will share them with the whole world,
So that in the circle of my own blazing heart
the fighters will lay down their weapons
and take each other into their arms.
Holy prophet,
You who burn with love for the Holy One,
I am ready to meet you in the sacred fire
and be transfigured by love.
– Mirabai Star
MAGNIFICAT
My soul glorifies the Lord,
My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour,
For He has blessed me lavishly and makes me ready to respond.
He shatters my little world and lets me be poor before Him.
He takes from me all my plans and gives me
more that I can hope for or ask.
He gives me opportunities and th e ability to become free
and to burst through my boundaries.
He gives me comfort to be daring to build on Him alone,
for He shows Himself as the ever greater One in my life.
He has made know to me this:
it is in my being servant that it becomes possible for God’s kingdom to break through here and now. Amen.
– A Sister, Community of The Blessed Virgin Mary, Wantage, Oxfordshire.
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WISDOM EUCHARIST READINGS – OCTOBER 23rd, 2023
Meditation by Teilhard de Chardin found on his desk
“ The God of evolution
The Christic,
the Trans-Christ
Sacred Heart…the motor of evolution
the heart of evolution,
the heart of matter
The heart of God…the world-zest.
The activant of Christianity…
the essence of all energy.
Heart of the world’s heart
Focus of ultimate and universal energy
Centre of the cosmic sphere of cosmogenesis
Heart of Jesus,
heart of evolution,
unite me to yourself.”
Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God, translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
How surely gravity’s law,
strong as an ocean current, takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing – each stone, blossom, child –
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.
Gospel of Thomas Logion 77
I am the light shining upon all things,
I am the sum of everything, for from me
Everything has come, and toward me
Everything returns.
Pick up a stone and there I am,
Split a piece of wood
and you will find me there.
Gospel of Matthew, Chap.5
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up to the mountain and when he had sat down, his disciples came to him.
Then he began to speak and taught them, saying …
Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness.
For they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful.
For they will receive mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers
For they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’
sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are you, who in the midst of persecution, when
they hate and pursue you even to the core of your being,
… and cannot find you anywhere.
Chief Seattle
Teach your children what we have taught our children— that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves. This we know. The earth does not belong to us; we belong to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons and daughters of the earth. We did not weave the web of life; We are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves….
Teilhard de Chardin
Love is the only force which can make things one without destroying them… Some day, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.
from Mass on the World, Pere Teilhard de Chardin
Since once again Lord I have neither bread nor wine nor altar. I will raise myself beyond these symbols up to the pure majesty of the real itself. I, your priest, will make the whole earth my altar, and on it I will offer you all the labours and the sufferings of the world. I will place on my paten Lord God all the harvest to be won from your renewal. Into my chalice, I shall pour all the sap which is to be pressed out this day from the earth’s fruits and from its sufferings. All the things in the world to which this day will bring increase; all those that will diminish; all those, too, that will die: all of them, Lord, I try to gather into my arms so as to hold them out to you in offering. This is the material of my sacrifice, the only material you desire.
The restless multitude, confused or orderly, the immensity of which terrifies us, this ocean of humanity, the slow, monotonous wave blows troubles the hearts of even those whose faith is most firm. Grant me the remembrance and the mystic presence of this, our one world, born ever onwards in the stream of universal becoming.
Teilhard de Chardin
Above all, trust in the slow work of God
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability –
and that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you.
your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.