3rd Thursday – Christmas Fluff

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 17, 2015
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Christkindl-Market-Nuremberg-Bavaria-Germany

 
I have on my desktop screen a beautiful picture of the Nuremburg Christkindlesmarkt. It was taken from a window several stories above the marketplace and on an overcast, icy day. The rooftops of the little booths are powdered with snow. The gloom of twilight is descending in a shimmery deep-blue haze, but the bright lights in all the vendor tents are like the diamonds on the lapis of a Faberge’ egg, and those shining on the church spires and from apartment windows and business store fronts make a halo around the scene. It looks cold, freezy-chilly-frosty cold, but I want to be there, strolling with the other shoppers, filling my basket with handmade ornaments and packages of fragrant Lebkuchen and chocolates and candles for the big day.

 

It’s all fluff. We know it is. We’re all drinking Gluhwein or hot chocolate, we ooh and aah over the craftsmanship at certain stops along the way, but it’s all Christmas fluff. The children always want the silliest, the most ill-fitting or likely-to-be-broken-before-we-get-home items, but we wouldn’t miss this.

 

Where’s the joy?  It’s fluffy. It isn’t Christmas …

 

Is it?

 

Perhaps there is something about the very fluffiness of Christmas that speaks to our hearts of something else very real and very important. We hear those good sermons about how poor Mary and Joseph were, how lowly Jesus’ birthplace. True, being born in a stable is unusual and unfortunate as we see it, but for all we know, Joseph might have been a man of means; probably the village carpenter made fairly good money. Perhaps he was well off!  There just wasn’t any room in the inn!

 

Still, an inauspicious beginning for the Savior of the world, except for the angels filling the skies, singing the glories of the Father! And the star that turned on to announce the day. And the shepherds! Lowly again, certainly … but when a company of men come to see and then to pay homage to a baby, lying in a hay manger, finding what they were looking for and leaving astonished and full of all they had seen and heard …. God is the greatest storyteller, ever. First He makes the story come true, then He tells it.

 

But do all these vendors and trinkets cheapen that night, this season? Not to mention the trees in our homes and the wreaths on our doors and the candles on our tables and even the fluffy gifts in the sparkly paper, waiting to be unwrapped!

 

This is what I think. If I rejoice in my Savior and my salvation every day that I live, my celebration can be Advent chains made from four sheets of red and green construction paper (and it has been,) or sugar cookies for a school party, or fancy soaps to a nursing home; it can be reindeers, snowmen, tinsel, and a star on top, because this is a party, and for the pure in heart, it’s hard to make this one not-holy. This isn’t the very fullness of joy, but I have that already. Even before I did, Christmas warmed my heart. This is the fluff that expresses that fullness, even the over-the-top spectacle of that otherwise quiet night, and I really like it.

 

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Third Monday -The Joy Candle

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 14, 2015
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Marzipan_fruits_and_vegetables_at_Harrods_(closeup)

 

You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.  (JOHN 15:16, nasb)

I’m grateful to God for the progressions He gives us in Scripture; there are many of them.  One of the foremost is the pathway to JOY, and it is well-marked for us and laid out in John’s Gospel. Jesus, speaking to His disciples, hours before His arrest and crucifixion, taught them to do these things, and assured them of resultant joy. He said:

  • Abide in Me and My words in You
  • In order to abide, to rest and remain in Me, keep my commandments.
  • Remember that you aren’t obeying as slaves but as friends; you will be doing what I do in relation to the Father; I always obey Him.
  • Now … here is the commandment! Love one another! See, my commandments aren’t grievous!
  • The way to be sure you are loving as I have loved you is to make certain you are laying your lives down for one another. Keep this in mind … I, your Lord, washed your feet, and I want you to do the same for each other. It is enough for the servant to be like his Master.
  • It is to your great benefit that I leave you in order to send the Holy Spirit to you … that’s how I can live in you, more than just with you, and you can live in me, always in my love, my own meekness, and even my own faith.
  • When you get hold of these things and do them, living as I have lived before our Father … yes, yours and Mine … you will have joy that cannot be taken from you.
  • The Father will have joy, too, because His desire is to see you bear fruit, and fruit that remains. That is important to Him.
  • One more thing … call to mind that you didn’t choose to come to me, and you couldn’t have appointed yourself. I chose you! I chose you and appointed you to bear good fruit, and now you know how to do it. Now we will be one in the Father, and now you can see what the Father has planned from the beginning!

 

It does make perfect sense.  There is a progression to nearly everything in this life, from the way real fruit forms to the way marzipan fruits are fashioned at Christmas, from the way we learn to ride a bike to the way we fall in love … there is always a progression.  As we light our Advent Candle tonight, we might pray and ask to be faithful in this trek toward the joys that cannot be diminished in Christ Jesus, our Soon Coming King.

 

 

 

Marzipan fruits

Dani Lurie, Wikipedia, by permission

 

 

 

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3rd Sunday – The Shepherd’s Candle – Joy!

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 13, 2015
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1280px-Pastrage

 

Here in Cor Unum Abbey, we do our best to think adequately, to apply at least enough rational thought to truth that it might benefit us irrationally. It often looks like this: supposing each of us proclaimed one truth … one true thing … each day, every day, during the year ahead, with a firm determination to believe that true thing with all our hearts – MIGHT IT NOT CHANGE OUR LIVES?

 

            Here is a “for instance” –

 

They shall be My people, and I will be their God; and I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear Me always, for their own good and for the good of their children after them. (Jeremiah 32:38 and 39)

 

That God Himself should make us His own, us and our children after us, giving us that which money cannot buy, the incomparable fear of Him, the reverential, soul-saving fear of God in all our hearts … Oh Lord! We bow before You!

 

Many times we have to confess, “When was the last time I said anything like this, anything so true, anything so able to silence all other suggestions?” Many times we must admit that lots of other words, never so true as these, speak in our minds and hearts throughout the week.  Jeremiah 32 goes on to say,

I will make an everlasting covenant with them that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; and I will put the fear of Me in their hearts so that they will not turn away from Me.  I will rejoice over them to do them good and will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul.

(verses 40, 41)

How is it that the shepherds, the “lowly” shepherds as they have come to be known, saw and believed, and more than that, they got up and went to seek out the One who had been proclaimed? Herod lifted not a finger (but to annihilate.) The rest of Bethlehem slept. Yes, the Magi were on their way, but how many (the Bible does not number them at three) out of thousands of those who watched the stars were in pursuit of the Truth?

 

A band of shepherds, watching their flocks by night. They had not been forgotten by God. Had they been hopeless in their lowliness, they would not have stirred, but hope is fortified in stillness, in the star-studded Presence of God.   Israelites indeed were these, or if not, the angels made them so, looking for the promise of God, having at least enough hope to rise up at what they saw and what they heard in Bethlehem that night, and coming away with more joy than words can tell.

 

Think of it … what they heard, we can hear, too!  Look!  Here it is:

 

“Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people;  for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.  This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

“Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, good will toward men.”  (Luke 2:10-14)

How can we not rise up and proclaim the truths that are spoken to us and for us in the Word of God? How can we not leave the flocks of tasks, diversions, strategies, agencies, comforts, entertainments, anxieties, businesses, and all earthly delights to see as they saw? If we will speak as the Lord has spoken, we will see as never before, and we will have joy.

 

And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child, (verse 17)

Here in the Abbey, as we read through our Bibles each day, we make note of those things the Lord speaks to us by His Spirit, a line or two that stands out, sometimes comforting us and sometimes convicting us, glorifying God. We make note of those Scriptures that stand out to us, and we proclaim them in our homes to be heard by our own ears, calling us to abundant faith in Christ and making true in us what is true in fact. Thus we are established in a hope that “fadeth not away” and “a joy unspeakable and full of glory,” and when it is time to speak to others, we speak by the Word and the Spirit of Christ.

 

Morning or evening (and in Cor Unum, three times daily,) like a healing medicine, we speak the truth, any glorious, majestic, saving, healing, helping Word that we wish to speak.  During Advent, this powerful proclaiming takes on a special meaning, for a great deal of proclamation was taking place in Israel during that first Advent season!

 

M Disdero, by permission, Wikipedia

Midnight Mass with Shepherds in Provence

2nd Thursday – Advent Faith

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 10, 2015
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Operation_Upshot-Knothole_-_Badger_001

 

Faith was radioactive in Israel in the year 33 BC. Radioactive … of or emitting from a powerful and dangerous form of energy.

 

            The faith of the principles involved was powerful, and it was dangerous to the powers that were.

 

Supposing we should, for Christmas this year, ionize our faith. Ionization … the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive charge by gaining or losing electrons to form ions.

 

            Let’s take Mary’s faith, for instance, and see how it relates.  At the very least, this might be an interesting Advent diversion!

 

Hers was devoid of false pride, of false humility, of self-reference or self-preservation.  Remove those. What a combination! Whatever the Lord God has seen accomplished in laboratories over the ages, on testing grounds, on land, sea, or in the air, nothing compares with the combustion of His plan and her faith.

 

Joseph: don’t you love him? He began with a righteous decision, not to disgrace Mary publicly, and ended with public censure and divine authority to keep safe the very Son of God and His mother. He added to his righteousness, faith, an unadulterated trust in the Lord Jehovah, God of his fathers, an obedience par excellence. Among the rich and powerful of every age, in the annals of time and the biographies of men of science and vision and accomplishment, Joseph made sure that Jesus would live and survive and come to maturity in a cosmic holocaust designed to exterminate Him.

 

God could, of course, have just let the earth open and swallow every one who ever sought to injure or thwart Jesus, from His cradle to the grave; instead one man was given the inestimable privilege of guarding this Child into manhood.  One person – huge responsibility.  Food for Advent reflection.

 

Now then, might not our faith see our children through the crises they face? Might it not see our country through turmoil and deception and into greatness in the sight of God? Might faith not bring us into the very Presence of the very God, to receive His very power and the cloak of His very glory until we bear the very image of His Son?

 

Let’s light our Faith Candles tonight, and pray that we will not be left unchanged, or leave ourselves that way, afraid to add to our faith (ii Peter 1:4-8) or to lay our lives down and subtract doubt and slothfully static fears (John 12:24-26.)  The love of God is the penultimate combustion, and we get to radiate it always and everywhere.

 

 

Operation Upshot

public domain, Federal Government Employee photo

 

 

Second Sunday – The Bethlehem Candle

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 8, 2015
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Bethlehem_1898

 

 

But the Scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Galatians 3:22

 

So much can be known of the Lord when we start from the correct vantage point: God is good, and He does good. (Psalm 119:68)

 

We call to mind that David, shepherd king of Israel, knew this to be true long before His descendent, Jesus of Nazareth, was born. Israel, and David, personally, had been privileged to travel with God, with His Presence, to see His miracles, to experience His victories in war and even His discipline when necessary. Other nations might deny Him; Israel could not, not for long. When they grew idolatrous, He came and got them and turned them again.

 

Jehovah had determined to have a people for Himself. Israel would benefit, sometimes despite herself, and one of the greatest blessings of all was that the Hebrew people did not have to waste generations and strength trying to be good enough to please God. They didn’t have to pretend they were without sin. It was for them to stay very close to the truth of their iniquity and the reality of atonement as provided in the system of sacrifice and the faithfulness of God’s covenant. They knew, thousands of years before Christ, that the “life is in the blood.”

 

God dealt severely with His people Israel at times, and purity of body and soul were never left to chance or interpretation. Their national faith knew Him to be the good God, the only wise God, the God of their salvation.  This alone was enough to set them apart … far and away apart from their neighbors.

 

The man and his wife who traveled to Bethlehem to register for the census decreed by Caesar Augustus were products of this nation, this chosen people, of stubborn and stiff-necked ancestors and equally stubborn men and women of no compromise when it came to righteousness.

 

During this Advent season, let us determine that we will celebrate as those alive from the dead, as those who know themselves to have been enemies of God, now redeemed from our own destructions and especially our own unbelief. Would you, would I, have said, “Be it unto me according to Your word” as Mary did?  I don’t want to think otherwise … ! While we were not raised among a people chosen as the Jews were chosen, we are the Lord’s, called to grace and chosen to believe. We haven’t seen, but we believe (John20:29,) and now we rejoice!  

 

To each one who believes what he hears, comes the greatest blessing of all, the power to become a son of God (John 1:12.) We will not come up short in the fullness of the restoration of all things. As shut up as ever we were in sin, how much more are we fortified, walled in, protected, covered and shielded by the faith in which we stand.

 

 

 

View of Bethlehem

Wikipedia, public domain

 

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The Value of Hope, First Friday

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 4, 2015
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Diwali_lamp

 

 

… if indeed you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope of the Gospel you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. (Colossians 1:23)

 

The crowning achievement of evil is to destroy hope.

 

It would be nearly impossible to kill and maim and abandon and … quit … if men were to maintain hopeful hearts. I say nearly, for hope can be adulterated. Because the devil, who is a liar and the father of lies, lies to us, some have protracted a hope so false that it has taken them on an express train into darkness. Eve, and then Adam, hoped a false hope, which was no hope at all, but more on that to come.

 

Satan must not be given to speak uncontested into our souls, and in this Advent season, we have opportunity to proclaim truth and see it catch and burn and glow. That we may do any season, of course, but Advent is such a good time for making a good beginning, or for renewing our dedication to the spoken word of truth.

 

When we light our Advent candles tonight, we may say …

 

“Father, we will continue in faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope of the Gospel which we have heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and we present ourselves to be made servants of that great and glorious truth at home and abroad.” (Colossians 1:23)

 

 

Let us be assured, someone or something is speaking to us nearly every hour of the day, and we are reciting, at least in our minds. Let it be the word of the Gospel, the engrafted word, which is able to save our souls, and let us take advantage of every opportunity to speak as God has spoken, a lamp in a dark corner, even in our own hearts and homes. (James 1:21)

 

 

Ribs Dey, by permission, Wikipedia

 

 

 

 

A Future and a Hope

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on December 1, 2015
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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

 

We looked yesterday into our God’s 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

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The First Candle – HOPE

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on November 30, 2015
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2009-12_Adventleuchter-natur.jpg

 

Traditionally, there are four candles lighted during the Advent season. Many families burn the first candle at dinnertime, starting the fourth Sunday before Christmas, and adding one candle each week until all are glowing bright on Christmas Eve, when the Christ Candle joins them.

 

There are so very many Advent devotionals out there … I hope you have a good one, or you may wish to print these texts and read them with your family in the evenings … or over coffee, if that suits you better!  For our purposes in Cor Unum Abbey, we will share Scriptures and insight on the four topics that usher us through this Season of watching and waiting between now and Christmas.

 

Hope … the prophet’s candle

Faith … the Bethelehem candle

Joy … the shepherd’s candle

Peace … the angel’s candle  

The Christ Candle

Our first Scripture reading, as we join together this on this first Sunday to begin and to rejoice together, is from the book of Psalms.

            The Lord delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love.

Psalm 147:11, NIV  

            Our lives would change measurably and immeasurably if we would do this one thing, if we would learn and practice the reverent fear of the Lord. It might surprise us how many times and through how many Scriptures we are admonished to be sure that we know the love of God, that we make certain that His lovingkindness is the security and the fullness in our hearts. The world around us would change if we would settle our souls in this determination. This one thing, perhaps as much as any other, is the making of a champion in Christ.

 

What a holy chore is set before us this Advent season, that we should enter the New Year assured beyond defeat and destruction that the love of God will prevail in us and through us! What a thing it is to be given hope, not that we should “hope” we will not be lost, ruined, defeated, impoverished, but that we shall hope to live in the reality of the unfailing love of God where there is no ruin or devastation at all.

 

In all things, our Father’s love prevails; if we suffer persecution, we are not abandoned, when perplexed, we are not in despair, when at times we are pressed down, we are not crushed. On the contrary, the life of Christ blossoms all the more fragrantly in tribulation (2 Corinthians 4:7-10,) and there is ever a brighter hour, a day when, in the fullness of time, all things are summed up in Christ .

 

There are a lot of superlatives in these paragraphs, and every one of them is valid.   We are here in Cor Unum, this monastery of the heart, to do what we are called to do, to see to it that we abide in hope, and in so doing, we shall abide in truth.

 

Yvonne Bentley, by permission, Wikipedia

Happy … Thanksgiving!

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on November 25, 2015
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Harvest_Festival_Flowers_at_Shrewsbury_United_Reformed_Church_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1478601

 

 

Food for thought today … If nuns checked their facebook home pages every day, might we not have a nation full of disgruntled, irate monastics?

 

The violence in the world! The corruption among its leaders! The disparagement of the Church! Lewdness made to look right and desirable! Open, unchallenged deception in the media!

 

Even when we train our souls not to trouble themselves with the evils we cannot correct or control, the never-ending gloom and threatening doom, the anger, the fear, the sense of helplessness, the sense of outrage, thanksgiving is an imperative palliative, one we must never forsake. Prayer with thanksgiving is world-changing.  (Philippians 4:4-7)   For us, the nuns of Cor Unum Abbey, the giving of thanks is fixed and irreplaceable; no matter the day, no matter the hour on the clock of history, we will give thanks and worship our God. No matter the difficulty and no matter the pain, there is every reason to give thanks to our God for the lives we live and the life of Christ, now made our own.

 

Like weight training, it is surprising how much, how deep and wide, how far-reaching the scope of our thanksgiving once we exercise it.

 

We are not unaware of the conditions around us, and some of us have a public responsibility to report and reprove, but when, in all the annals of time, has there been a season without flood, famine, fornication, or fierce rivalry and its warring expressions?  We cannot live godly lives until we are more grateful than we are offended and afeared.

 

The Scripture tells us that our God in heaven sees the rage of nations … and laughs! (Psalm 2:4) Is He laughing at them, mocking? Perhaps in a holy way that we don’t understand, but this we know: He laughs because He isn’t a gloomy God. Laughter was His idea, His creation. If we are laughing in purity of heart, grateful and happy to be alive, and alive forever, we are closer to heaven than we may know.

 

Thanksgiving, as we have seen, prepares the way for salvation, and the heart full of real and unfeigned joy, of holy laughter, is a portrait of the soul saved from sin, freed from fear, tuned in to the happiness of the Father.

 

Happy! Thanksgiving!

 

photo by Marion Haworth, by permission, Wikipedia

Harvest Festival Flowers

 

It …Works! . . . Eighth Day

Posted by Cor Unum Abbey on November 24, 2015
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Good_Morning_From_the_International_Space_Station

I told you earlier that I would share the story of my little wooden beads and how it was that they became a part of my daily Office.

 

One summer, about ten or fifteen years ago now, I discovered that I had fallen into a pit of lethargies and something that looked almost like … depression! I had never struggled with any lasting depression, and no sorrows had ever been able to side-line me, but something awful was going on. Day after day, and for no reason that I could pinpoint, I just wanted to – quit. Perhaps better said, I didn’t want to do the things that were mine to do, and I didn’t want to try anything new. That alone was unusual! It wasn’t suicidal, and I certainly didn’t want it to be, but it was dark and lonely and a little frightening.

 

I had tried all the usual things when my heart was troubled, making sure there was no unforgiveness in there, repenting of anything I might have done or failed to do, but nothing seemed to work.  My attempts at worship were feeble, at best.

 

I prayed through that season, sort of, off and on, but mostly I worried and felt agitated and undone. At last, as the weeks rolled by, I cried out to the Lord in a pit of despair, “I know I’m not supposed to be like this. I don’t know what’s going on, but I know this isn’t from You. Help me! What shall I do?” Before that week was up, I heard, read, or encountered this advise, from three different sources … “Spend an hour giving thanks to God.” Now, I don’t know if I’ve heard that advise since (although I’ve given it!), but the third time it came, I knew where it was coming from, and I took paper and pencil, set a timer, went into a bedroom, sat down on the floor, and began.

 

It was just a list. “I’m thankful for …” and I wrote down, “hot showers,” “my rose bushes,” “the blood of Christ,” “books on my book shelves.” Yes, whatever came to my mind, silly, spiritual, or special, and after half an hour and hundreds of items, I felt like a new woman.

 

The phone rang. I answered it. When I hung up I said to the Lord, “Thank You! That worked! Thank You! I think I’m all better!” to which I heard the reply … “Go, finish your hour.”

 

“I will,” I said, “but I may have to repeat a lot of thing.” No matter. I went back into the bedroom and continued, with some repetition and lots of new things, and just as the timer went off …

 

… like a black cloud, like a fog with weight and gloom in it, something lifted out of my heart, off my shoulders, soared out of the bedroom, through the ceiling, over the rooftop, and sailed away to the west and over the Wichitas.

 

To this day, I’m not sure where that “thing” came from or what prompted it, but I had this thought, “If an hour of thanksgiving can do what it just did, why don’t I preempt any other occurrences with daily thanksgiving? So, I did. I’ve been giving thanks around my beads ever since.

 

What I like best is the rightness of it. Every morning when I wake up, my heart is still beating. I did nothing to keep it going, and when it stops, I will be with the Lord. He is Everything. Troubles and sorrows and pain cannot escape His sweetness or His purpose … look how He used a ghastly brush with depression!

 

Don’t let the prop (the beads) put you off … it makes no difference how you manage to live in gratitude, but it matters that you do. With all the humility I have, may I say to you that when Frank died, depression did not have a fighting chance. That little cloud knocked at the window more than once, but when it did, I ran for my beads and it shivered and fled.

 

“Good Morning from the International Space Station”

(photograph of a sunrise over the western United States)

astronaut Scott Kelly, public domain, NASA photo