First Saturday of Advent 2021

(I've shifted to the evening prayer form for Saturday.  Instead of the Benedictus, you get the Magnificat.  It's also why I've published this in the evening, rather than the morning.)

Malachi 4:1-6

“Surely the day is coming; it will burn like a furnace. All the arrogant and every evildoer will be stubble, and the day that is coming will set them on fire,” says the Lord Almighty. “Not a root or a branch will be left to them. 2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays. And you will go out and frolic like well-fed calves. 3 Then you will trample on the wicked; they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day when I act,” says the Lord Almighty.

4 “Remember the law of my servant Moses, the decrees and laws I gave him at Horeb for all Israel.

5 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”

Luke 9:1-6

9 When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. 3 He told them: “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. 4 Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. 5 If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.” 6 So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.

ALONE, alone, about a dreadful wood

Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind,

Dreading to find its Father lest it find

The Goodness it has dreaded is not good:

Alone, alone, about our dreadful wood.

Where is that Law for which we broke our own,

Where now that Justice for which Flesh resigned

Her hereditary right to passion, Mind

His will to absolute power? Gone. Gone.

Where is that Law for which we broke our own?

The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.

Was it to meet such grinning evidence

We left our richly odoured ignorance?

Was the triumphant answer to be this?

The Pilgrim Way has led to the Abyss.

We who must die demand a miracle.

How could the Eternal do a temporal act,

The Infinite become a finite fact?

Nothing can save us that is possible:

We who must die demand a miracle.

--W.H. Auden

MAGNIFICAT ANTIPHON: God has made known salvation.

MAGNIFICAT 

I acclaim the greatness of the Lord,

I delight in God my Savior,

who regarded my humble state.

Truly from this day on

all ages will call me blest.

For God, wonderful in power,

has used that strength for me.

Holy the name of the Lord!

whose mercy embraces the faithful,

one generation to the next,.

The mighty arm of God

scatters the proud in their conceit,

pulls tyrants from their thrones,

and raises up the humble.

The Lord fills the starving

and lets the rich go hungry.

God rescues lowly Israel,

recalling the promise of mercy,

the promise made to our ancestors,

to Abraham's heirs for ever.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.  As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.  Amen.

Our Father...

Alpha and Omega, your reign among us has begun.  Let our life here be a reflection of your glorious kingdom and bring us all together to everlasting life with you, Creator, Savior and Spirit.  Amen.

May God bless us, deliver us from all evil, and bring us to everlasting life.  Amen.

Let us bless God/and give thanks.