Fourth Thursday – We Push “Pause”

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 21, 2017
Posted in: Advent 2017, Christmas 2017, devotional life, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

 

pastrage

 

 

 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the LORD’s hand double for all her sins.

A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain.

And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” . . . 

Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.

He will feed his flock like a shepherd, he will gather the lambs in his arms, he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.

(Isaiah 40:1-11)

 

We’ve spent a lot of this Advent month talking about the Light of the World, and it has been a blessing and a Christmas joy, yet which one of us has passed through this season without any personal grief or without being deeply touched at the sorrows of others near to us?

 

Today’s reading speaks of comfort, and we are asking today that the Shepherding of God may revive the souls of those we know, troubled and torn at Christmastime.

 

As The Day advances, presents under the tree, cookies in the jar, carols in the air, there are so many around us, bereft of comfort and out of touch with God, our Shepherd, ourselves among them when we get too busy, too stressed, too anxious, too overstimulated with all we think Christmas ought to be.  And not, of course, that such things are restricted to the Advent season!  Most of us can do that all year long!   We pause today to remember those who are stressed, who are anxious, some almost beyond endurance, some sick, some in prison, some poor, some forgotten.  Life is hard and tribulations are promised. We lift them up to You, beloved Lord, the souls of those in need of a good, an excellent, Shepherd today.  We lift to You our own souls, whether peaceful or agitated.

 

Christmas is hardly to blame, for at this time of the year there is a special outreach, a particular desire to seek and to find, to help and to bless, and we want to remember, to care, to take time; we want to pray, to invite, and yes, to comfort.  So today, we pause.

 

There are so many for whom Christmas is just another week, perhaps another difficulty through which to survive. With all the business and activity of Christmas, we remember them as You remember us, and we ask that we might be given to keep our hearts light, in this season and always.  All of us, always in your care, always watched over, always protected, shepherded, though storms do rage.

 

If we cannot speak tenderly to them in person, we speak tenderly of them to You, Lord God, Almighty King. Ours are the voices crying out, and we do cry out in prayer over them and in praise to the Lord, the Lover of their souls, “Behold your God! He comes with might, and He will feed you like a shepherd, and with His arm He will gather you and gently lead the nursing ewes!”  That is my prayer for you, too, dear reader, and for all of us as my candles are lighted today.

 

Oh, Merry Christmas, world! In the midst of all affliction, all confusion, all pain, all hard service, even oppression, He will lead us out, He will gently lead us, and where we are most vulnerable, He makes every special provision that we and our young will flourish in His care.

 

M. Disdero, by permission, Wikipedia

Shepherds at Midnight Mass

 

Fourth Wednesday – Exultant Joy!

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 20, 2017
Posted in: Advent 2017, devotional life, personal devotion, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

rockefeller_center_christmas_tree_03

 

 

The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.      

( Zephaniah 3:17 )

 

 

I am powerless to do more than rejoice in this passage. Blessing and honor, glory and power be unto this God who addresses us as “daughters” and “sons,” because He is a Father!

 

 

Look at His love! Look how He comforts us, and with strength!

 

 

This is our warfare, my beloved friends! Look at this Warrior – this rejoicing, singing, renewing God! To think that hell is powerless against His joy! If only we would enter into it! He has taken away the judgments against us! Our enemies are cast out!

 

 

            He stands … He sings … in our midst. Perhaps you have heard that the word “exult” in the last verse is such a powerful word that it cannot be contained with emotion alone … it is the word for dancing and twirling about ecstatically!

 

 

Oh, we are weak with love, but our hands can bend a bow of bronze … it’s true! We can string a bow meant for the mightiest, because we are the mightiest in the faith of our Lord, and we can FIRE arrows into the heart of the Lord’s enemies.

 

 

Let’s do that together as we light our Advent candles these last evenings together.  Let’s join in with worshiping, warring angels, not to mention apostles and saints as numerous as the sands along the shore, and our worship will be the better part of our warfare, for we are the redeemed of the Lord. We will let these realities flood up through our souls and out of our mouths … the tide turns on our praise! We are the mighty in the land, and as we go forth, He dances for joy!

 

Sing aloud, O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter of Jerusalem!

The LORD has taken away the judgments against you, he has cast out your enemies. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear evil no more.

On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: “Do not fear, O Zion; let not your hands grow weak.

The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.      

( Zephaniah 3:14-17 )

Angels get a “shout out” in the heart of Manhattan every year!

Rockefeller Center, NYC, Wikipedia

Michael Vaden, by permission

Special Delivery

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 19, 2017
Posted in: Advent 2017, Christmas 2017, devotional life, personal devotion, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

800px-thumbnail

 

 

This is, as we all know, a very busy season at the Post Office. Having been married to a postman, I know first-hand that Christmas vacations were … non-existent! Nobody got them … plan your trips for some other time of the year. For those who might have asked, the answer was … no.  The mail must go through, especially the Christmas mail!

Here we are, less than a week before Christmas, and we are asking for a special delivery this season…the most special.

  

Oh send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me, let them bring me to thy holy hill and to thy dwelling!

 

Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and I will praise thee with the lyre, O God, my God.

  ( Psalms 43:3-5 )

 

Do we think our God will be less faithful than the United States Postal Service?

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” That, as you know, is the postal workers’ creed, and I believe they live up to it magnificently, talk show monologues notwithstanding. Shall the light and the truth of God fail to reach us, fail to arrive at our address? Light and truth are just what we need!  Will He fail to be our exceeding joy if we will rejoice exceedingly in Him?

Will the Lord slip up, get distracted, take a day off, that we and those for whom we pray shall not arrive at His holy hill?

The answer?  No!

 

 

 

Christmas Mail

Photograph, public domain, Department of the Navy release

Persian Gulf (Dec. 24, 2004) – Postal Clerks and bravo working party members begin to move a mountain of packages from one of the aircraft elevators to the hangar bay after receiving the last pre-Christmas mail delivery aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman. Carrier Air Wing Three (CVW-3) embarked aboard Truman is providing close air support and conducting intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions over Iraq. The Truman Strike Group is on a regularly scheduled deployment in support of the Global War on Terrorism. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate Airman Kristopher Wilson (RELEASED)

December 5 – The Light of the World

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 18, 2017
Posted in: Advent 2017, Christmas 2017, devotional life, personal devotion, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

577px-Gobin,_Michel_-_Young_Man_with_a_Candle_-_1681

 

 

 

The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 

When evildoers assail me, uttering slanders against me, my adversaries and foes, they shall stumble and fall. 

Though a host encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident. 

One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell 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.   ( Psalms 27:1-4 )

 

Today’s reading takes us from the Person and Truth of God, through our fears and oppressions, all the way to triumph and then … into the Presence of the Lord. In four verses!   I’ve often thought that if you could memorize only one passage of Scripture with which to prevail in life, this would be a great one.

When we dwell in the house of the Lord, which is Christ, we abide in light and in salvation. Can we begin to imagine what our homes would be like if everyone who came though the door stepped into this tabernacle?

The next verse, verse 5, says this:

For in time of trouble he will hide me in His pavilion; in the secret of His tabernacle He will hide me, and set me up upon a rock.

David is speaking of being in Christ, all those centuries before the birth of his Lord and Savior! Here we are, in the 21st century, reading about it. We are thoroughly modern, of course, and we can have light, we can flood our homes with manufactured radiance, with the flick of a switch, but oh! … to illumine our hearts and our hearths with Light and Salvation, personified! . . . and we can do that, too!

That is our Advent wish, our desire, and our prayer. I love that Jesus said, in John 15:7, “Ask what you wish, and it will be done for you.” We speak of Christmas wishes, and now is the time to have them answered. The precursor was, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you …” and that statement is universally grand! We get the Presence and the Promise – that’s Christmas, dear ones! We may wish and will to abide in Christ, with all the beauties and eternal blessing to be found there.

So light your Advent candles today, my friends … and make a wish . . . and don’t forget to believe!  That will ever be the spark to the kindling.

 

Young Man with a Candle

Michael Gobin, public domain

Second Thursday – Shine On!

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 15, 2017
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

 

Luminary-E-White-4

 

 

Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to observe thy righteous ordinances. (Psalms 119:105-106)

 

The sounding joy of Advent is light! … the Light that is coming into the world. It is, for seasoned Advent celebrants, an amazing juxtaposition of glory in Him Who Was and Is and Is to Come.

 

I love light. I love it! Sunrises that paint the world from first light, fireworks that cause grown-ups to ooh and ahh, thousands of “fairy lights” illuminating the shop windows and the town square and the village Christmas trees in European cities, a candle in a window, and glow sticks and fluorescent necklaces on children at amusement parks.

 

Rainbows, prisms, a well-lit portrait in oils, and a diamond when it catches the light and sends it back in radiance into the world … I love light. My favorite part of darkness is the way it showcases light.

 

Oh, we do lament the darkness in the world around us. It’s so intense these days, as we have seen and said.

 

The righteous ordinance of God is that we should believe on the One He has sent. When we do, there is no light, no laser light, not the Aurora Borealis, there is no star or sun that can hold a candle to the light we are. The Living Word is our lamp, and He illumines us from the inside, and we shine like torches lighting a boulevard for the world around us. We are, from heaven, like millions of luminaries marking the road to the New Jerusalem.

Shine on, my dear ones. Shine this Advent season. When a person is merry and bright … when all within is calm and bright … the darkness must flee. The Light of the World shines, shines in us, and the piercing glow of humility, compassion, faith in God, and unfeigned love are as a thousand suns in us.

photo courtesy of

Davidson Point of View

Second Thursday – Light, Unveiled

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 14, 2017
Posted in: Advent 2017, Christmas 2017, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

1280px-Cornelis_De_Wael_-_To_Visit_the_Imprisoned_-_Google_Art_Project

And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing.

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God.

For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.

For it is the God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

(2 Corinthians 4:3-6)

 

Is there a promise in there anywhere?  Yes!  God shines in our hearts!  He shines and gives forth the knowledge of His glory in the face of Christ, whose face we are in the world, if we will bear His image.  That’s  BIG promise!

Today’s reading is sobering, to my mind. We read that in some cases, the Gospel is veiled. It is veiled only to those who are perishing.

The god of this world has blinded them. We often think of these as nations far away and far different from our own, but there may be perishing ones among us, and we say this Advent season, Oh Lord God, “Let light shine out of darkness!”

We know beyond mistake that the light in us did not originate with us, and so we have hope. Lord God, let the god of this world suffer a mighty defeat this month; let the light of the Coming of Christ Jesus into the world, Savior, King, Lord, Healer, Deliverer, Son of God, Son of Man, Messiah … shine in other hearts, in our neighbors’ hearts, in prisons, in nursing homes, in our towns and villages and churches, too!

I was born again on Christmas Eve. I believe in Christmas miracles. I was perishing. I didn’t believe. And then I did.  I say, “Shine, Jesus, shine! Shine in us and through us, and save those near and far. Flood the nations with grace and mercy. Send forth Your Word, Lord, and let there be light!”

  

 “To Visit the Imprisoned”

Gustave Dore, 1873

 

Second Wednesday – The Dividing Line

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 13, 2017
Posted in: Advent 2017, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

800px-Dividing_Light_from_Darkness

 

And we are writing this that our joy may be complete.

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.

If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth;

but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. ( 1 John 1:4-7 )

 

Don’t you just hate them?

The little things you say and do that come straight out of a dark place.

Little lies. Little evasions. Little furies. Little bits of dirty fluff that come from jealousy and pride and wounded feelings.

Wait … hold it! … stop! It’s Christmas! Why are we talking about such things?

I once heard someone say, “That’s what Advent is for, that we can make straight paths for our feet!’”  We know those paths get straightened every day and at every opportunity, road crews ever on the alert, but I do want the blessings of Advent, even if they pinch.

How many lies will you or I have told before the New Year?  Small ones, certainly, but little sentences less than true.  Horrors!

It’s really comforting to remember that in the Lord our God there is light and no darkness at all. If He forgot our names – that’s funny! – He wouldn’t lie and cover up and pretend He knew us if He ran into us at the mall. He doesn’t have any pride to protect. He just IS GOD. If we gave Him a sweater three sizes too small, I think He would reach out and touch us and smile into our eyes, and nothing would matter any more.

There’s more!  We just ARE HIS.  He is JUST GOD, ALL GOD, ONLY GOD and we are JUST HIS, ALL HIS, HIS ALONE.  That’s what we ought to be protecting us this Advent season, not our pride.

I’m going to try it. I may not make it through the day, much less the season, but as He gives me grace I’m going to deal truly and not out of my pride. Look out! If you see me on the street, please don’t ask me how I like your new jeans or your new hair! Just kidding! But, YIKES! What if I didn’t, really? What if you didn’t like mine? It doesn’t matter – I like you!

If I didn’t … but I do … If I didn’t, I’d fix that instead of having to lie about it.

We could do what Jesus did, if we didn’t like each other.  We could just love one another instead.

But I do … I like you and love you.

 

Dividing Light and Darkness

Michelangelo, Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 1509

Second Tuesday – Hope for the Journey

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 12, 2017
Posted in: Advent 2017, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

Golgotha_(Church_of_the_Holy_Sepulchre)

 

 

 

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” Jeremiah 29:11

 

Our God demonstrates an amazing insistence that we should know we are loved. This is a beautiful thing to search out in Scripture or mark as we read through our Bibles. Even in the rule-giving in Leviticus, there are many places where the seeing eye will notice that, God being God, He was giving the Israelites the laws by which they might live and never forget the One Who had, with great lovingkindness, taken them for His own. Rightly understood, we could never be better tethered to life than to be bound to the knowledge of the God Who loves us.

 

Theirs was a relationship by law and promise and holy fear, yet there was always room for hope. Israel “hoped” every day that the system of sacrifice and offering and penitence and obedience was effectual to keep them bound to God and not “cut off.” In that hope they were able, and sometimes did, keep themselves from defilement and continued in blessing and in prosperity.

 

What for us? All that was given is given in our Lord Jesus Christ, and He has become our hope, our welfare, and our future; His life is our own, if we will have it.

 

There is yet a law, the “law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.” (Romans 8:2)   There is a promise – “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. (John 1:12) There is yet a fear … “Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; For all the nations will come and worship before You, For Your righteous acts have been revealed.” (Revelation 15:4)

 

We know there are scores of promises made to us and kept, in Christ, and the law of God is written upon our hearts. We hope because of His faithfulness. Our fear of God is holy and pure and tends toward a living hope. Oh, this is a journey of hope toward hope, full of hope, fulfilled in hope! Thank You, Father, in all You have given, that You have given us HOPE!

 

 

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem

Fr. Maxim Massalim, Wikipedia, by permission

Second Monday – Lighting the World

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 11, 2017
Posted in: Advent 2017, Uncategorized. Leave a comment

Scrooges_third_visitor-John_Leech,1843

 

 

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God;

all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John1:1-5

  

Rich or poor in America, most of us string lights and sit around the tree during the holidays, perhaps a Christmas movie on television or carols playing on the stereo, glad for the season. Still, is there even one of us who cannot immediately call to mind someone we know, perhaps someone we love, in trouble, sick or grief-stricken, in prison or just in a dark place, emotionally?   We all know people who are living in darkness so deep that lasers and night vision goggles won’t help at all. Some of us remember first-hand what it was like to be there. With the night comes cold in the desert, and we remember that, too.

 

Cold, dark, lonely lives, in the midst of so much activity, sometimes in the lap of luxury, and too often hidden behind phony smiles or stand-offish natures. Souls saturated with that horrid feeling that nobody really knows who you are or where you are, and that nobody really cares.

 

That’s the whisper that darkness brings.

 

Light came into the world in Christ Jesus, but all was not merry or bright then, either. His job was not to make an eternal Christmas, but to shine in the darkness, and so is ours. That is our celebration during Advent. Light shines in the darkness, and light shines in us, not for display but to give light, to dispel darkness, that by our love toward others, our prayers for them, our generosity, forgiveness, our help and our hope, they may be warmed to the Gospel of Christ.

 

May God grant that the splendor of joy and the brilliant love of God will shine through us, with or without padded wallets, even if all that is seen is an enduring patience and a gentle heart.

 

Give us this gift this Christmas, O Lord, that we may bring our joy and the bounty of Christ Jesus into the lives of those around us.  Help us to take advantage of opportunities, especially those unique to the season, help us to care, and grant that we can fully enjoy our own Advent and Christmas all the more fully because we are finding ways to shine in the lives of those around us.  Amen.

 

The Ghost of Christmas Present

John Leech, public domain, (100 years beyond death of the artist)

 

Day Thirteen – The Righteous Branch

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 10, 2017
Posted in: Uncategorized. Leave a comment

csiro_scienceimage_11626_barley_root

 

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring forth for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land.

In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell securely. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The LORD is our righteousness.’

Jeremiah 33:14-16

 

One of the chief glories of Advent is the opportunity it affords us to see how perfectly ready was the time.  When Jesus came to us in the flesh, it was on the prescribed day.   It is astonishing to observe how many prophecies were fulfilled at His birth, how the Father had brought so many avenues into convergence in a stable in Bethlehem.

We cannot see the clock ticking down, ready to strike the hour, but we know that it did, even to the appearance of a star that turned on to attract the attention of the Magi and giving them time to travel and reach the Child and His family just at precisely the right moment.

With their arrival and their conference with Herod, the horrors came early, too.

Thousands of years pressing in upon one another to the end that the cry of the human heart might be answered. Few have ever even known to ask for what we need most … we need to be “right with God.” In typical human-ness, men had been looking under every superstitious stone for a way to effect personal cleanness and freedom from guilt and to ward off evil, but to no avail. There is no righteousness, there is no cleanness apart from faith in God our Creator.   When we think of it, how ludicrous it is to imagine that God would splinter His person to fit into the doctrines of men. Please, no! He must then be Who He Is, One God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, Almighty God, Majesty, Lord of All.  Merciful God.  Righteous One.  How could we hope in less than all that He is? That would, amazingly, be a false hope.

The very search away from God demonstrates how deeply we need His righteousness alone. May all the paths of our Christmas season and all those of the year ahead lead us into the perfections of Christ, into His faith and His love and His wisdom and His holiness. We may rejoice that the time is right, just now, for each of singly and all of us together, if we will believe. This is the only time we have, and this is the hope of life now and in the hour of our death.

Lord God, save us to the uttermost, that we may dwell securely in our souls as well as in our holiday homes. Save us to hope in you, for by your Word, those who hope will never be put to shame. Amen.

 

a barley root

Mark Talbot, by permission, Wikipedia