Dear Dignity Friend, Hope you are having a good week. We hope and pray that this weekly message will nurture you spiritually and be especially helpful in the more difficult times of life. Reflection: This Sunday marks the beginning of the liturgical year. Happy New Year Advent is one of the most difficult periods of the church’s liturgical cycle and all of the life questions the scriptures bring. Why? Because Advent is all about waiting. And waiting is not easy. As life goes on, the liturgical cycles seems to become more and more meaningful to me. Perhaps after you’ve done enough living you come to understand that every life waits, suffers, comes to new life and rejoices in the ordinary. Advent is especially meaningful because it teaches me to wait without complacency, to wait without compliance There is so much to wait for now in life: human development, love, peace in the church and in the world. And most of us do not wait well for what we want or what we are meant to be. We get impatient or we get depressed. We question or we doubt. We argue or we get alienated. And now, we all wait, not for the coming of Christ—God took care of that---but of the coming of the Gospel, which we are delaying in the name of God. Waiting is a call to conscience. Waiting leads us to compare what is probable with what is possible--- unless we ourselves do something about it. Waiting engages all of us in the struggle, for or against, until there can be no disinterested bystanders, no free rides, no unconscious commitment to the unconscionable. While we wait we can learn and grow and become stronger than ever in our convictions. We can be conscientious and creative. And no matter who wants to get suppress us or to silence us, we can be signs of hope that never, never go away until, someday, the star finally shines. from Life is for Living by Joan Chittister We meet every Sunday for Mass. Catholic Eucharistic Liturgy 5:30 pm Sundays St Paul’s Episcopal Church 1018 East Grayson
Posted on: Sat, 29 Nov 2014 23:40:52 +0000