It looks like a cold beginning to Advent: the churchyard this morning after a dusting of snow...
I seem to have come to the point where in many ways I prefer the austere longing of the Church's Advent season to the celebrations of the Nativity itself. I suppose this could be a natural reaction to the commercial frenzy which surrounds the weeks leading up to Christmas, and the sentimental artificiality of so much of our extra-liturgical celebration of Christmas itself. On the other hand, the explanation could be that, psychologically, my preference has been determined by the wilderness experience of ecclesial provisionality of many of us over the last few years. In the words of R. S. Thomas (a poet not entirely to my taste in some ways) "the meaning is in the waiting."
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness and to put on the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility; that on the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever. AMEN
"I seem to have come to the point where in many ways I prefer the austere longing of the Church's Advent season to the celebrations of the Nativity itself."
ReplyDeleteIt's taken you this long? There are some of us for whom 'ecclesial provisionality' is normal and even to be desired. The Dark Night of the Soul exists in communion with Rome and will be present in the Ordinariate as well...
Venno
Perhaps I'm a late developer! I don't think anyone imagines that (for anyone who might be contemplating it) a change of ecclesial allegiance would be a magic cure-all for all our spiritual ills and anxieties, I was simply reflecting on the personal effect of the experience of radical uncertainty. Where you would expect me to disagree with you is on the desirability of 'ecclesial (and sacramental?) provisionality.' Archbishop Michael Ramsey spoke and wrote eloquently of the provisionality of Anglicanism itself in relation to the Universal Church, but regarded that as desirable only in so far as it pointed beyond provisionality to its ultimate fulfilment in the unity which Christ wills for his Church.
ReplyDelete... a unity which will be eschatologically perfected, and exists today only amid tension and where there is sufficient charity (as it was indeed in apostolic times). Hence the joy of looking forward in Advent to the eschaton when we will be happy to find we were all wrong together!
ReplyDeleteVenno
Yes, amen to that
ReplyDelete