Christmas Day - December 25, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert James Magliula, OHC

Christmas Day - Saturday, December 25, 2022

Isaiah 9:2-7

Titus 2:11-14

Luke 2:1-14(15-20)

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The shepherds went with haste to Mary and Joseph and told them what the angel had said to them about this child:

“Do not be afraid; for see – I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” Luke 2:10-11

Today Bethlehem is more than a geographic location in Palestine. Today Bethlehem is within us. Both are situated amidst hope and joy, sorrow and loss, conflict and violence, healing and reconciliation. The older I get and the more I experience the beauty and pain of life, the more I want to live the Christmas story in this time and in this place. The story that matters and makes a difference is whether Jesus has been born again in us today.

 

What good is it to us if the angel announces good news of great joy to the shepherds if that good news is not also announced to us in our lives? What good is it to us if the shepherds go see this thing that has taken place if we do not also see it? What good is it if Mary treasures and ponders how these things can be if we do not also wonder at the mystery of God-with-us? What good is it if Jesus is laid in a manger in Bethlehem if he is not also cradled in the manger of our heart where God’s life and our life intersect. 

Today the manger of our humanity is filled with divinity. 

Once the shepherds leave having told Mary and Joseph what the angel said, there is only silence.  Neither of them say a word. Maybe that’s how it should be. Both had their lives ruptured by angelic encounters.  Gabriel’s encounter with Mary at the Annunciation and Joseph’s encounter with him in a dream don’t lead them out of doubt and into faith. Their encounter with the angel leads them out of certainty and into a holy bewilderment. Out of familiar spiritual territory and into a lifetime of pondering, wondering, questioning, and wrestling. 

Like Mary and Joseph, many of us were raised with a precise and comprehensive picture of who God is and how God operates in the world. Who knew that our life with God would be to shed our neat conceptions of the divine and emerge into the world vulnerable, and new, again and again?

 This, of course, is what Mary and Joseph had to do in the aftermath of their angelic encounters. They had to consent to evolve. To wonder. To stretch. They had to learn that faith and doubt are not opposites—that beyond all the easy platitudes of religion, we serve a God who dwells in mystery. If we agree to embark on a journey with this God, we too will face periods of bewilderment. This can frighten us as it did them and tempt us to try to hold our relationship with God at a sanitized distance from our actual circumstances. Such efforts leave us with a faith that’s rigid and inflexible. It’s when our inherited beliefs collide with the messy circumstances of our lives that we go from a two-dimensional faith to one that is vibrant and alive.

Silent treasuring and pondering are how we begin to make meaning of Jesus’ birth beyond an historical fact or doctrinal belief. We don’t need more facts or information. It’s a time to move from the event of Christmas to the meaning of Christmas. Making meaning is not so much about explaining, understanding, or analyzing. Treasuring and pondering are the work of the heart--- to interiorize the reality of God-with-us. Not a concept to be explained but a truth to be lived. Only we can encounter the treasure his birth holds for us. Only our pondering can reveal the things about him, us, and our life together. We don’t need to be afraid to go to that place, to become intimate with our own experiences, even our mistakes, and learn from them. God hides in the depths, even the depths of our sins. We humans crave meaning. We need to make meaning and allow Jesus to give meaning to our lives. We need to ponder and open ourselves to what this birth might mean for our life today. By it, God is inviting us to inhabit the fullness of our humanity.

Despite the way our culture markets Christmas, it is not an escape from real life. The point of the incarnation is that Jesus is one with us in the ordinary. The “good news of great joy” is announced in the ups and downs, frustrations and celebrations, joys and sorrows, of life. The birth that interrupted and called the shepherds away is also the birth that returned them to their fields and flocks. They carried the birth of Jesus back within them. Their fields and flocks were not different, but they were. Like the shepherds we must leave the scene of the nativity, the event of Christmas, and return to the fields of our lives---to the ordinary and the routine, the familiar daily work, and worries. That’s where we will ponder and treasure God’s embodiment of our humanity. That’s where we will glorify and praise God for all we have heard and seen. That’s where all of life and creation are made holy in the joining together of heaven and earth, divinity and humanity, spirit and matter. 

Every year I come to this feast wanting one thing---- to be reminded of the truth of the angel’s words, so that I can rely on this birth in my life and in our world which aches to hear the good news of great joy that can overcome our many divisions. I think deep down that’s what we all want. This manger holds the Creator of us all. Every aspect of our lives, and all of creation are cradled in Him. Today the Creator is born and by that birth we, the created, are offered the gift to be reborn.

+ Amen.

Advent 4 A - December 18, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Robert Leo Sevensky, OHC

Advent 4 A - December 18, 2022

Isaiah 7:10-16

Romans 1:1-7

Matthew 1:18-25

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Br. Robert Leo Sevensky's
paternal great grandparents -
parents of grandfather Barney

IIf you didn't know better, you might think that today's gospel reading is the beginning of Matthew's good news. But it isn't. Seventeen verses precede it, verses we almost never hear read in church and certainly never on a Sunday, though we did in fact hear a brief section read at yesterday’s Eucharist. And that, to me, is regrettable if understandable. Because those seventeen verses are, as the first verse says: “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of

David, the son of Abraham.” 

This is followed by fifteen verses filled with names that are almost unpronounceable. The passage begins by reminding us that: “Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zereh by Tamar…” and on and on, forty-two generations from Abraham down to Joseph the husband of Mary. But these verses are not unimportant for they set the story of Jesus in context and help us to understand who he is and how he came to be who he is for us. These verses, this genealogy, places Jesus directly in the Davidic royal lineage, the lineage from which the Messiah was to come. And as we know, for Matthew it is the messiahship of Jesus which is central to understanding his person and his power.

There has been a lot of interest lately in genealogy. The TV show Roots on PBS remains very popular as celebrities are introduced to distant and previously unknown ancestors. Ancestry.com has allowed many of us to become amateur genealogists. And DNA testing has allowed people to trace the long history of their ancestry as revealed in their cellular structure. It's all pretty fascinating.

During the recent COVID pandemic some of these ancestry tools were made available free of charge through the local public library system. I took a stab at trying to clarify something of my own family history. I was not very successful, however, and my family lineage remains rather short, essentially going back to grandparents and no farther. But just last week my cousin Paul sent me photos of my great grandparents, the parents of my father's father who himself died in 1925. I had never seen pictures of them before and never knew that any existed.

There was certainly nothing remarkable about the photos or the people pictured it in them. They both looked dour, a bit stern, and somewhat down at the heels as I would expect of immigrant laborers from Eastern Europe in the 1880s. But it was fascinating to me none the less. I studied the photos searching for family esemblances and traits. Can I learn anything about myself by looking at this photo of two strangers about whom I know virtually nothing but who paradoxically are part of my history and who to some degree, however small, shape who I am today? I think that's why most people are interested at some level in their genealogy. It's not because it will reveal some exotic past, even though we might hope otherwise, but that it helps us in some small way to understand who we are today.

I think the same dynamic is operative in those first seventeen verses of Matthew's gospel which offer us a genealogy of sorts of Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed One, the Messiah. And there are several interesting characteristics of this genealogy.

First, it is not exactly historically accurate. It is rather a fanciful or idealized genealogy, nicely divided into three groups of fourteen generations, each group populating a certain era in the history of Israel. And it reminds us, if we need such reminding, that Jesus is the fruit of a long historical process at the heart of the Jewish story. It may not historically accurate. But that may not be its point at all nor its importance for us this morning.

As I mentioned before, this genealogy establishes the royal messianic line right down to Joseph: “…the husband of Mary of whom Jesus was born who was called the Messiah.” This is not so much an historical claim as it is a theological one.

And like most genealogies, the one that Matthew offers us contains some surprises and perhaps even some cautions. Jewish genealogies were generally patrilineal, as this one is, tracing ancestry through the male parent. But there are five women mentioned in this list, and as a footnote in my Bible says of these five women: “…each acted independently, in some cases scandalously, at critical junctures in Israel’s history to ensure the continuation of the Davidic line.” And they are quite a controversial group indeed. There is Tamar, a gentile, who use subterfuge to conceive and bear. There is Rehab, a gentile and a prostitute, who hid Joshua’s spies and insured victory over Jericho. There is Ruth, a gentile and grandmother of King David who refused to go back to her gentile world and chose rather to be incorporated into the Hebrew people. There is Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, a gentile who, depending on how you read the story, is either an adulteress or a woman sexually exploited by a powerful ruler. And lastly there is Mary, definitely not a gentile, but unmarried and pregnant and not by her betrothed. In truth Joseph's genealogy--and by extension Jesus’-- is as messy or messier than yours or mine. Yet look what God did with it and through it.

Finally, and it's easy to miss this in our English translations, the word genealogy in Greek is the word genesis which is, of course, the title of the first book of the Hebrew Bible, a word filled with layers of meaning and associations. Matthew begins his gospel with this proclamation: “An account of the genesis of Jesus.” And that’s a clue, and more than clue, that we are being offered something radically new: a new story, a new beginning, a new creation coming out of a rather messy, if royal, history.

Which brings us at long last to today's gospel reading with its focus on Joseph. We could mention Joseph being a dreamer like his namesake, the son of Jacob who was sold into slavery in Egypt but whom God used for the survival of the Davidic line. We could highlight Joseph’s righteousness and compassion in not subjecting his betrothed to public shame and disgrace. But what's most important about this passage from Matthew’s viewpoint is Joseph's obedience, his obedience to the Angel who said to him: “… you are to name the child Jesus.” This is not a casual command, for in act of publicly naming the child, Joseph legally accepts him as his own. In doing this, in claiming the child as his own, he also and very importantly places the child in the Davidic line. Jesus is capable then, and only then, of assuming the role of Messiah, the Anointed, the Christ.

Yes, Joseph was a dreamer. And yes, Joseph was a just man and compassionate. But above all, Joseph was obedient, listening, as Saint Benedict would say five centuries later, with the ear of his heart, acting on what he heard, and opening for all the way of salvation.

I think once again of the picture that I received last week of my great grandparents and how interesting that is to me. But I think also of another picture, an icon or image, that is yet more interesting and much more important.

Next Saturday evening, Christmas Eve at first vespers, we will sing Prudentius’ achingly beautiful fourth-century hymn Of the Father's Love Begotten. The second verse never fails to touch me:

O that birth forever blessed, when the Virgin full of grace,

by the Holy Ghost conceiving, bore the Savior of our race;

and the Babe, the world's Redeemer, first revealed his sacred face,

evermore and evermore!

It is in that face and that babe that we discover our true ancestry, and it is there that we find our deepest identity as children of God and discover there our true end, our life's purpose and our goal.

Brothers and sisters, let us keep an eye out for that face this Christmas season. In it, we will see our own true face. And through, it we will come home to our own heart, close to the heart of God.

O yes!

Advent 3 A - December 11, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

The Rev. Samuel Kennedy

Advent 3 A - December 11, 2022

Isaiah 35:1-10

James 5:7-10

Matthew 11:2-11

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In the name of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit

A blessed Gaudete Sunday to you.  What is it about this Sunday that sets it apart from the other Sundays in our journey through the season of Advent?  There are signs around us that something is changing – something is a bit different.  The warm glow from the advent wreath is a little stronger today -- a bit brighter now with the third candle lit. Our priests are dressed in rose vestments, and if you have one of the traditional advent wreaths at home you may have lit a rose-colored candle this morning as you woke up.

While we the reading from which this Sunday gets its name is not assigned for us this year, our journey through Advent does begin to take a particular turn this Sunday which I believe is very much a cause for joy.  But we are going to discover that cause for joy within a Gospel lesson full of dissonance.

 

In Matthew’s gospel, we continue with a narrative that focuses on the rather fiery and enigmatic character John the Baptist. But whereas last week we met him in the full strength of his ministry in the Jordan valley, in this week’s Gospel, we find him in a dramatically different situation.  He has been imprisoned unjustly by Herod Antipas, and while John may not have known it at this point in his story, we the readers know that his earthly journey is nearing its end.  Nothing about that situation speaks of joy.  

Our Gospel for today opens with John in prison sending a message to his cousin, Jesus.  Our passage reads, “When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

Mind you, this is the same John who had been “all in” on the idea that Jesus was the long awaited One.  The One whom the prophets had foretold.  The One who would come to his people and set them free.  

What had happened to lead John from such certainty about Jesus to this place of doubt?  Was it the fact that he was unjustly imprisoned?  Just some understandable depression? Perhaps. 

But I find it unlikely that a figure as bold and contrarian as John was terribly surprised to find himself imprisoned by corrupt leaders.  After all, he had spent much of his ministry decrying the immorality and hypocrisy of the power structures and leaders of his day.  And while I can only imagine the hardships of life in prison in the 1st century, I would imagine that the asceticism of his life up to that point would have equipped him to be able to live in such a place without falling into deep despair.

It would appear that John’s doubt stems from something deeper than the setting he finds himself in – as terrible as that setting may be.    

Lets take another look at the text, it reads “When John… heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples…” to ask this question, ‘‘’Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?’”

It would seem that there is something fundamental about Jesus’ ministry that has led John to this place of profound doubt.  Jesus, it would appear, is not measuring up to John’s expectations.  

In our Gospel lesson last week we heard John articulate some of his expectations for Jesus’ ministry.  When talking about Jesus he says to his listeners, “I tell you, the ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.  I baptize you with water….but after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry.  He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.  His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.”

John expected the promised One to come with righteous vengeance and a measure of wrath, with a winnowing fork and the flames of purification.  And lest we dismiss John too quickly, we must remember that these are not unnatural or even unscriptural expectations.  In our Old Testament lesson which soars with hope and provides an evocative litany of images of transformation – images of thirsty land being transformed into bubbling spring, and of the parched desert bursting into bloom, we also hear the expectation that God will execute vengeance on behalf of the oppressed, “Strengthen the feeble hands”, the text reads,” steady the knees that give way; say to those with fearful hearts, Be strong do not fear; your God will come, he will come with vengeance; with divine retribution he will come and save you.”    

This appears to be what John was expecting; what he was longing to see. And if we are honest, if I am honest, this is sometimes what I long to see.  I want to see those who oppress others, and certainly those I feel are oppressing me, punished.  I want them to experience some sort of retribution.  And quite frankly, on a practical level in this world, the unseating of unjust powers always seems to require a measure of violent power on the part of the oppressed or those who choose to protect them.  It’s just the way this world seems to work.  So, I don’t think John is terribly misguided in his expectation, that the promised One of God, would be ushering in his reign in a decidedly different way than Jesus appears to be living, teaching, and ministering. 

How does Jesus respond?  Well, he doubles down really.  

He replies, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see.  Jesus is reminding John’s disciples that change is truly afoot, and Jesus is ushering it in.  Jesus continues by quoting from our Old Testament Lesson for today, “the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.”

Note what Jesus decidedly leaves out of his quote.  He leaves out the hallmark descriptions of Divine violence.  He doesn’t say, take heart John, just a few more days, and I will rally the people to overthrow the tyrants who have imprisoned you.  Take heart John, because in just a few more days I will marshal legions of angels to dismantle the systems of oppression that have subjugated your people.”

No, instead, Jesus indicates that he is doing something very different.  He is starting from the inside out.  He doesn’t begin by eliminating the systems of oppression, but by healing the very wounds that the systems of oppression are built to exploit.  The blind who are helplessly dependent on the seeing -- they have their sight restored.  The lepers who are excluded from the community by virtue of their illness?  They are cleansed and reincorporated into society– free to return to the Temple of their God.  The deaf hear, and even the dead are raised – the power of the sword itself is mitigated.   And this is indeed incredibly good news for all of these poor who have been healed and given new life.

But what we do not hear, is Jesus centering the sword of justice in this his work of restoration.  And Jesus knows this is a conspicuous and scandalous absence.   He knows it isn’t what John expects as he adds to his message, “And blessed are those who do not stumble on account of me.”  

But notice, there is another conspicuous absence in our Gospel lesson today.  And it is this.  Jesus does not condemn John for his doubt or his fundamental misunderstanding about how Jesus was going to usher in the Kingdom of God.  In fact, Jesus goes on to publicly commend John for his faithful work as a prophet who leaned into the winds of oppression and injustice.  Jesus does not swing the sword of condemnation toward his forerunner who is struggling in doubt, confusion, and quite possibly anger, but rather extends to him the gift of love that can expand John’s heart and mind, that can bring to John to the place where he can rejoice in the work of God that extends far beyond anything John had been able to conceive of.

And this is what we are invited to take joy in today, my siblings. As the swirling clouds of the apocalyptic imagery of advent begin to clear, we find the image of this coming Kingdom of God beginning to take shape.  And the shape it takes is challenging but it is cause for true joy.  It is challenging because it will frustrate some of our basic notions about how bad power is disrupted and how the oppressed get lifted up.  But it is cause for joy because this Kingdom that Jesus ushers in, creates change that cannot be undone.  

There is also cause for joy, because this is how Jesus comes to each of us.  Not bearing the sword of vengeance and retribution, but with the powerful touch of healing love.  To set us free from the spiritual blindness and willful ignorance that leads us to participate in these systems of oppression and injustice.  Our participation in these systems is both external and internal, and he also comes to set us free from the spirals of shame that lead us to acts of great internal violence.  

This advent, Jesus does not come bearing the sword of Divine retribution but rather bearing the cross of love.  He comes to heal his people and set us free. And if we can allow ourselves to not be scandalized by this Jesus, I believe we will find that this is indeed great reason to rejoice.

 In the name of God: Lover, Beloved, and Love Overflowing.  

Amen.

Advent 2 A - December 4, 2022

Holy Cross Monastery, West Park, NY

Br. Luc Thuku, OHC

Advent 2 A - December 4, 2022

Isaiah 11:1-10

Romans 15:4-13

Matthew 3:1-12

Click here for an audio version of this sermon

We gather again with joy this morning to celebrate the second Sunday of Advent. Advent as we know is a season in the church calendar dedicated to the hopeful anticipation of the arrival or ‘coming’ of Jesus. This advent can be a commemoration of his coming as a baby, 2000 plus years ago, which culminates with Christmas; or the second coming in glory that we hope and wait for, our salvation. During this period, as a young Christian, we were encouraged to engage in meditation, prayer, and scripture study that emphasizes hope, peace, love and joy.

From the first story in the Bible to the last, we see narratives, poetry, prophecy, biographies and personal letters that inform our understanding of the Advent of Jesus in unique ways.

One such passage is what we heard from in the first reading today. The prophet Isaiah speaks of a Messianic King who will manifest the characteristics of the great people of Israel up to David. It claims that life will spring forth from the injured stump of Jesee and a branch shall grow out of his roots. This reference is very important to Israel’s history because of the many exiles they had experienced, although the text specifically speaks of or imagines a new beginning for the monarchy of Judah. 

In this hopeful future, the Spirit of God will descend upon the ruler resulting in Justice for the poor and lowly of the land as we hear in verse 4 of the text. The text also speaks of the re-ordering of creation’s priorities in verses 6-9, where life emerges from death and a return to the original harmony of Paradise.

The concrete expression of this new future is a person, a ruler on whom the Spirit will rest; a human being who embodies what is best in the traditions of Israel. This ruler will be wise and understanding, powerful and effective in war, able to judge for the benefit of the poor, and obedient to God. So glorious is the reign of this king that he is literally clothed in righteousness and faithfullness.

As Christians, it is not hard to see ourselves as the nation ruled by this monarch, Jesus of Nazareth, the Jewish descendant of Jesee through David. A close comparison though, between the expectations of the king described in our passage and the ministry of Jesus reveals some strong differences. Jesus had a strong ministry and continues to minister graciously in the present through Word, Sacrament and through works of mercy carried on by his faithful disciples. However, evil still flourishes in the world, the poor and meek remain afflicted, predators continue to kill their prey and violence is still done on God’s Holy mountain. The earth is still very far from being full of the knowledge of the Lord. Christ’s victory therefore falls short in human terms; it remains a hidden victory or an unacomplished victory which is disappointing at times.

Bruce Springsteen in his song “Reason To Believe”  expresses this disappointment in song….

Seen a man standing over a dead dog

By a highway in a ditch

He’s looking kinda puzzled

Poking that dog with a stick

Got his car door flung open

He’s standing out on highway 31

Like if he stood there long enough

That dog’d get up and run

Struck me kinda funny

Seemed kinda  funny, sir, to me

Still at the end of every hard day

People find some reason to believe

Now, Mary Lou loved Johnny

With a love mean and true

She said, “Baby, I’ll work for you every day”

And bring my money home to you

One day, he up and left her

And ever since that

She waits at the end of the dirt road

For young Johnny to come back

Struck me kinda funny

Funny, yeah, indeed

How at the end of every hard-earned day

People find some reason to believe

Take a baby to the river

“Kyle William” they called him

Wash the baby in the water

Take away little Kyle’s sin

In a whitewashed shotgun shack

An old man passes away

Take the body to the graveyard

Over him they pray

Lord won’t you tell us

Tell us-what does it mean?

At the end of every hard-earned day

People find some reason to believe.

Congregation gathers

Down by the riverside

Preacher stands with a Bible

Groom stands waiting for his bride

Congregation gone and the sun sets

Behind a willow weeping tree

Groom stands alone and watches the river rush on

So effortlessly

Wondering 

Where can his baby be

Still, at the end of every hard-earned day

People find some reason to believe 

Can we therefore conclude that Jesus was a failed Messiah? I would say No…but we need to agree that his ministry is still fundamentally incomplete. It is fundamently incomplete mainly because we misunderstood the message and failed to see our role in it. We took it literally that when he comes things will change and decided that we are passive observers rather than active participants. The mess in the world is mostly of our own making either by omission or by commission, through blatant disobedience, ignorance or misinterpretation of scripture.

This passage from today therefore reminds us Christians that we should still long for the Messianic completion of creation, the so called second coming or parousia. We therefore should not judge the Jews who have historically struggled to see Jesus and his ministry as Messianic because we too are looking forward to it’s completion. Our waiting for the second coming, however, should be an active waiting. Since it will be a kingdom of Justice, we must right now work for justice…it will be a Kingdom of equality, so we must now work for the equality of all…A kingdom of harmony, then we should right now strive to live in harmony with one another…a Kingdom of friendship, then right now we must try to become each other’s true friend in the Lord…a Kingdom of brothers and sisters, then we must right now start coming closer and closer to our neighbors. This in other words means that we must reform our lives for the Kingdom of God is at hand.

We are invited by this text to celebrate the ministry of Jesus in the past, and especially in the present, but also keep in mind the important place of intercession and work so that creation may arrive at its promised destiny as a place where peace, Justice and grace have the final word. 

Advent is about hopes and longings. We all yearn to be with people dear to us and especially with Jesus, whose second coming we so look forward to. This is because the world we live in is fractured and needs healing and peace, a healing and peace that only he can give. 

The delay of something much longed for can result in angst and pain but when the desire is fulfilled, it is like we have accessed the tree of life, an oasis in the desert, something that allows us to feel refreshed and renewed.

During the waiting and longing times, praying and pondering the wisdom of the Bible has at times helped me greatly as a person. Paul reminds us in the second reading that we heard from Romans 15:4-13 that whatever was written in the scriptures is for our instruction so that by their steadfasteness and encouragement we may find hope. That is why I recommend the wisdom of our religious educators that I mentioned at the  beginning, that we read scripture texts that emphasize hope, peace, love and joy.

Some of our hope and desires might not be fulfilled right away. Some, in fact, might only be met through God when we die. Whatever our longing, we can trust in Him knowing He loves us unceasingly, and that one day we will be reunited with Him, behold Him as He truly is, and praise Him with Thanksgiving. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit”[Romans 15:13]

Let us pray:

God our creator, you fulfil our deepest longings. We give you our hopes and our desires, asking you to grant them according to your wisdom and love

Though Jesus who comes.

Amen.