Advent-Dec. 7

What happened to marriage and family that it should have become a travail and a sadness?...God may be good, family and marriage and children and home may be good, grandma and grandpa may act wise, the Thanksgiving table may be groaning with God's goodness and bounty, all the folks healthy and happy, but something is missing...What is missing? Where did it go? I won't have it! I won't have it! Why this sadness here? Don't stand for it! Get up! Leave! Let the boat people sit down! Go live in a cave until you've found the thief who is robbing you. But at least protest! Stop, thief! What is missing? God? Find him!

--Walker Percy

Bright mornin' stars are risin',
 Bright mornin' stars are risin',
 Bright mornin' stars are risin',
Day is a-breakin' in my soul.

Oh, where are our dear fathers?
Oh, where are our dear mothers?
 Oh, where are sisters and brothers?
 Day is a-breakin' in my soul.

Some are down in the valley prayin',
Some are deep in the mountain sleepin',
Some are up in heaven shoutin',
 Day is a-breakin' in my soul.

--Appalachian folk hymn

As to the times and the seasons, my dear people, you have no need to have anything written to you.  For you yourselves know well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. When the people say, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pangs come upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape.  But you are not in darkness, my dear people, for that day to surprise you like a thief.  For you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.  So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.  For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night.  But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.  For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, as indeed you are doing.

1  Thessalonians 5:1-11

Abba Poeman said about Abba Pior that every single day he made a fresh beginning.

--Desert Wisdom

CONDITOR alme siderum,
aeterna lux credentium,
Christe, redemptor omnium,
exaudi preces supplicum.

Qui condolens interitu
mortis perire saeculum,
salvasti mundum languidum,
donans reis remedium,

Vergente mundi vespere,
uti sponsus de thalamo,
egressus honestissima
Virginis matris clausula.

Cujus forti potentiae
genu curvantur omnia;
caelestia, terrestria
nutu fatentur subdita.

At whose dread Name, majestic now,
all knees must bend, all hearts must bow;
and things celestial Thee shall own,
and things terrestrial Lord alone.

Te deprecamur hagie,
Venture judex saeculi,
Conserva nos in tempore
Hostis a telo perfidi.

CREATOR of the stars of night,
Your people's everlasting light,
Jesus, Redeemer of us all,
We pray you hear us when we call.

In sorrow that the ancient curse
should doom to death a universe,
You came, O Savior, to set free
Your own in glorious liberty.

Come, Sun and Savior, to embrace,
Our gloomy world, its weary race,
As groom to bride, as bride to groom:
The wedding chamber, Mary's tomb.

At your Great Name, O Jesus, now
All knees must bend, all hearts must bow;
All things on earth with one accord,
Like those in heav'n, shall call you Lord.