Come thou long expected Jesus
I’m thinking of millions of people on the move from home instead of towards it. I’m thinking about 2 degrees rise in temperature and I am thinking about my grandchildren and the planet they are inheriting from my less than great care and I so want the Climate Change Conference to be a watershed moment in our lifetime.
Born to set thy people free
I’m thinking of the hundreds who mourn the loss of loved ones in Beirut, Bamako and Paris from the recent bombings. I’m thinking of those men and women who feel so convicted by a hatred of things Western that they are willing to blow themselves up for their convictions.
From my fears and sins release me
I long for the burning fires of passion in my own life to ignite change within and without. Isn’t Advent about getting in touch with our longings, to open ourselves up to hope that things could be different in me and through me?
Let me find my rest in thee
Ron Rolheiser writes, “Thomas Aquinas once taught that we can attain something in one of two ways: through possession or through desire. We like to possess what we love, but that isn’t often possible and it has an underside. Possession is limited, desire is infinite. Possession sets up fences, desire takes down fences. Loneliness and longing let us touch, through desire, God’s ultimate design for us. In our longing, the mystics tell us, we intuit the kingdom of God. Our loneliness and longing are a hunger and an energy that drive us, always, beyond the present moment. In them we do intuit the kingdom of God.