December 11/Third Sunday of Advent Jesus said to them in reply, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.” ~ Matt 11.4-5 In a 2014 graduation speech at the University of…
Category: Keeping Advent
Keeping Advent 14: Conversation Partners
December 10/Second Saturday of Advent As they were coming down from the mountain, the disciples asked Jesus, “Why do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” ~ Matt 17.9-10 It is meet and right to set aside dedicated daily prayer time, but we don’t have to stop there. Prayer is, at its core, an ongoing conversation with the One…
Keeping Advent 13: The Answer Is No!
December 9/Second Friday of Advent Jesus said to the crowd: “To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children who sit in marketplaces and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said,…
Keeping Advent 12: Around the Corner
December 8/Second Thursday of AdventSolemnity of the Immaculate Conception Mary said, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” ~ Luke 1.38 Luke does not tell us exactly what Mary is doing when the angel Gabriel appears, but artists from the Italian Fra Angelico in the 15th-century to the British…
Keeping Advent 11: Toil and Trouble
December 7/Second Wednesday of Advent Come to me, all you who are toiling and are burdened, and I will give you rest. ~ Matt 11.28 Sometimes our human tendency to try to control our lives gets the better of us. We feel burdened by worries or anxieties – small daily aggravations that mount, a beloved family member or friend who…
Keeping Advent 10: The Waywardness that is Ours
December 6/Second Tuesday of Advent If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? ~ Matt 18.12 In The Shepherd’s Life, his account of sheep-farming in England’s Lake District, the author James Rebanks describes a spring morning when a lamb…
Keeping Advent 9: Look Here!
December 5/Second Monday of Advent Make strong the weak hands, and the stumbling knees make firm.Say to the anxious of heart, “Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.” ~ Isa 35.3-4 There are plenty of reasons to feel anxious, these days. COVID continues to hang around like an unwanted guest. Inflation bedevils the economy. In our country, political…
Keeping Advent 8: Coattails
December 4/Second Sunday of Advent [John the Baptist said to the Pharisees and Sadducees,] “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’” ~ Matt 3.8-9 It’s one thing to take a certain amount of pride in one’s family history (skeletons and all), and even in the…
Keeping Advent 6: Location, Location, Location
December 2/First Friday of Advent One thing I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after:to live in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple. ~ Psalm 27.4 Location, Location, Location Years ago, when I was working in the off-Broadway theater in New…
Keeping Advent 5: Demolition by Neglect
December 1/First Thursday of Advent The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house. And it fell – and great was its fall! ~ Matt 7.27 Failure to build on a strong foundation is inevitably a pathway to collapse, whether one is constructing a house or a faith life. The obvious and salutary…