FIRST SUNDAY IN ADVENT (Yr.
C)
Sermon preached in the Church of All Saints, New Eltham
at Parish Mass on Sunday, 2nd December, 2012
‘Be alert at all times,
praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things
that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.’ (Lk.21:36)
X
INTRODUCTION
Once again, we begin a new Christian Year with the season of
Advent when we prepare for the coming of the Lord. The somewhat ominous message of our gospel
reading, in particular, is a salutary reminder that such preparation is more
than making sure the cards are written and presents bought.
Yet is the consequence of our praying ‘thy kingdom come’
really going to be like a divine disaster movie? Is this what we really desire and long for:
what my heart must be set on as we prepare for the coming of God? No wonder it seems better to focus into more
cuddly things – babies and mangers, Christmas trees and fairy lights. As John Betjeman wrote in one of his poems:
And is it true?
For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a
family dwells,
No caroling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare—
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine.
What needs to lie at the heart of our preparations for the
coming of a God is the realisation that God desires to be at-one with us and
expresses this every time He makes Himself present through the Eucharist. The prayer of the ‘heart’s desire’ is to want
to allow God into the depths of our being.
That’s the essence of prayer, something I want to share some thoughts
about on two Sundays during Advent. This
morning I’ll focus into some of the more common aspects and next time explore
what we mean by meditation and contemplation.
WHAT IS PRAYER?
Now, if you were to ask most people what they understood the
word prayer to mean they would, probably, say ‘asking God for things’ or, with
any luck they might add ‘and thanking God for things’, or even ‘listening to
God’. And all these things are aspects
of prayer, for prayer concerns the ‘inclination of the heart to God’. At its most simple prayer simply involves
giving time and attention to the desire of the heart to be at one with
God. So let’s see how the Eucharist can
help us re-imagine our prayer.
COMMON PRAYER – THE
EUCHARIST
Common prayer, or the Liturgy – the work – of the Church,
helps our relationship with God to develop.
We come to church and sing hymns, listen to readings, offer our
intercessions and make our Communion in the Body and Blood of Christ. Hopefully, through all this, we are moved into
a deeper union with God. The ‘heart’ of
who we are (not the physical heart but the centre of our being) is re-fashioned
as we open our inner being, our heart, to the desire of God for at-oneness with
us.
When I was learning the Faith I was taught that one should
prepare to receive Holy Communion. I was
encouraged to remember my Communion throughout the week and spend time the
night before preparing by prayer and fasting.
Then when I first entered a church I should pray – something with the
passing of time it’s easy to forget. Yet
if we stopped to pray that would be a reminder we are called, before we
attended to our jobs or our friend, to Love God with all our heart, mind and
strength’. And, remember, the essence of
prayer is the inclination of the heart to God.
As one of my Franciscan brothers used to say: ‘Get it right with God first, brother!’ Coming to church wasn't to be like visiting
Tesco: this is the House of God and the
Gate of Heaven and everything here is designed to move the heart towards
God. If we have the eyes to see.
There’s a story about the late Orthodox Archbishop Anthony
Bloom I’d like to share with you. One
day a young man, new to the church, asked Archbishop Anthony what books he
would need when he came to the church.
Instead of giving him a copy of the service Anthony said this: ‘Come and let your eyes see us. See how we worship. Then, come and watch our faces. After that, take a service book and learn the
words you need to use by heart, but never bring it with you!’
Perhaps, as someone once remarked to me, we ‘westerners’ are
too attached to our books…
COMMON PRAYER – THE
DIVINE OFFICE
Another means of prayer that many find of great help is what
is known as the Prayer of the Church or the Daily (or Divine) Office. Priests have to pray the Office of Morning
and Evening Prayer daily and others find some form of such prayer to be of
great value. Consisting mostly of psalms
and readings, the Office is a simple way of praying with scripture. And immersion in scripture helps form our
prayer. Whilst it may be helpful to do
that in church, most do so at home or even on the train to work. It’s a great way to begin the day as it means
we are giving attention to Jesus’ primary command. But whatever we do, we need to get into the
habit of prayer in our daily lives.
CONFESSION
Right at the beginning of the Eucharist we are invited to
confess our sins by making a General Confession. Some realise this needs to be personalised and
have developed a practice of regular Confession to a priest. Now the Sacrament of Confession is often
neglected in the Church of England, but it is something available to all for
all of us sin and need to be reconciled with God and our neighbour.
The Anglican dictum concerning this Sacrament is, ‘all may,
none must; some should’ and many find that making their confession at regular
intervals is of great help in developing a right relationship with God.
PRAYER AS
INTERCESSION
Only later in the Eucharist do we come to prayer for others,
that prayer we call Intercession. Yet for many this is the only prayer they
practice. ‘Please help Johnny!’; ‘Don’t
let Mary suffer!’; ‘Help Peter pass his exams.’
These are more rightly called ‘arrow’ prayers – shooting an arrow of
desire to God.
Or we might make ‘ejaculatory’ prayers; prayer that suddenly
arises from some moving experience which may be silent or, at times, spoken
aloud. Both might be called involuntary prayers which emerge from
movements within the heart. But they are
dependent on circumstances outside of ourselves.
A RULE OF LIFE
And it’s for that reason another way people find help in
putting their relationship with God at the centre is by developing what is
known as a Rule of Life. A Rule sets out
the norms by which we are called to live.
So, apart from matters like a pattern of prayer and attendance at Mass,
it will also act as a reminder of how we give attention to charitable giving,
and how we feel called to serve others – not least our families, partners and
friends. And for people who are very
busy it’s a good way of making sure we set aside time for ourselves!
SPIRITUAL DIRECTION
But all who are seeking to give attention to God recognise
they need help and so the tradition of Spiritual Direction has developed since
the earliest centuries. Spiritual
Direction is an on-going process whereby an individual, with the aid of a more
experienced guide, explores a deeper relationship with themselves, the
world around them and with God.
IMAGES OF GOD AFFECT
OUR PRAYER
But our image of God will affect the way in which we respond
to our approach to prayer. If our image
of God is rooted in a distant father, or in one who was harsh with us whom we
came to fear, or if we lacked love in our earliest years or have a poor sense
of our own worth and value, that will affect our approach to God. Thoughts of the coming of the Son of Man ‘in a cloud with power and great glory’ may then fill us
with fear and anxiety. Yet, if we
embrace the image of His coming as the coming of our Divine Lover who seeks to
re-make us in His image, then we can ‘stand up and raise ()our heads, because
()our redemption is drawing near.’
CONCLUSION
Next time I want to spend time reflecting on the place of
meditation and contemplation in our life of prayer and there’s a leaflet inside
the December magazine which, I hope, will be of help. ‘When I
prayed I was new’, wrote one great Orthodox guide, ‘and when I stopped praying I was old.’ ‘Prayer’ wrote another, is ‘the habit of being in the presence of
the thrice-holy God and in communion with him, … the elevation of the soul to
God.’
This matter of prayer is of fundamental importance to people
of all faiths yet is daunting for many of us.
Yet it is as easy and as basic as breathing. Rather than something to leave to ‘experts’,
prayer is the very atmosphere in which we are called to live. ‘For
me’ wrote S. Therese of Lisieux,
‘prayer is a surge of the heart; it is a simple look turned toward heaven, it
is a cry of recognition and of love, embracing both trial and joy.’ So may this Advent be a time when we pray and
live the Eucharist – seeking reconciliation; centring on the Word of God;
holding the world before Him; offering daily our sacrifice of praise and
thanksgiving as we seek to venerate Christ beneath all outward things. This is the Prayer of Eucharistic Living as
we open our hearts to the One who seeks and desires us.
