Today we start a New Year in the life of the Church. The first Sunday in Advent should always be a challenge, and a joy, as we look forward to the extension of the Kingdom of God, and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. This year there are two pressing things that we need to think about. The first of these are the questions posed to us by our bishops as an outcome of the Synod in October. The second is the teaching which the Holy Father gives us as we enter this Year of Prayer, to prepare for the Jubilee in 2025.
Let me remind you of the first of the Bishops’ questions: ‘How can we create and promote space and time for prayer, with spiritual communion, for adoring God, and for listening and responding to God?’ I suggest that this fits very closely with the emphasis in Pope Francis teaching this week about the importance of thanksgiving to God in prayer. We all need at various moments in our Christian lives to think about how much time we devote to prayer, when we pray, and how we pray? This is a fulfilment of our Lord's command in today's Gospel 'Be on your guard, stay awake, because you never know when the time will come.' (Mark xiii 33) Prayer is that moment in our day, in our week, in the whole of our life, when we look to the Lord. Anytime we look to the Lord, we look to him to come to us. We may look for him to come to us to help us, to forgive us, to sustain us, at that moment. At the same time, all our prayer looks forward to his coming in glory at the end of time, when he will judge us – and, if he wills, admit us into the fullness and glory of his kingdom. In our prayer, we should never lose sight of the end of our lives in the fullness of Jesus Christ. So, each one of us is called today to look at our life, and at the conditions in which we pray. We may need to think about where we pray. Do we have that secret place which the Lord asks us to use? In which we may meet him without distraction and without reservation? Do we have the appropriate helps to our place of prayer? In things like the crucifix, the statues of the Saints, and the equipment for prayer, such as our rosary? Alongside this, we need to think very carefully about when we pray. Do we pray, as traditionally we would, in the morning, and immediately before we go to sleep? Those are the classic times of prayer., when we thank God for the new day, and thank him for the past day, repent of our sins, and seek his blessing through the night. The conditions of our personal life, particularly if we are part of a large family, may mean that we need to use different times if we are going to be able to give our mind and our soul completely to God in prayer. Alongside this. we have the Bishops’ question about Adoration, and listening, and the Pope's teaching about the importance of Thanksgiving. It is very easy in our daily prayers to miss out the element of adoration. This is very often because we find it a very difficult idea to get our heads round. Adoration is simply recognising God as God. It is putting ourselves in his presence, and reflecting deeply and sincerely on what he has taught us about his nature and being. We should do this anyway, when we make the sign of the cross at the start of our prayers. But all of us will need to do something more after that to make ourselves fully aware of the reality and wonder and splendour of God, to whom we come in our prayer. This is then the root of genuine and sincere Thanksgiving. We need to acknowledge before God his extraordinary goodness in making himself known to us, even in calling us into being in preference to so many other possible beings. None of us has a necessary existence. All of us are called into being by the love and goodness of God. It is very important that we acknowledge that before our Lord. Then we can move on to reflect on all the other good and splendid things with which he has surrounded us, and which He has given us in our character and abilities. Again, none of us has a right to any of these. They are the gift of a good and gracious God. It is right that we should acknowledge them, rejoice in them, and thank him for them. This list will run the complete range from the joy of a loving and supportive family through to very particular and personal moments, when we're conscious of the goodness of the Lord to us. It is all too easy to neglect these two important elements in our prayer. It is essential that we do not lose sight of them, but make them so part of our prayer, that they are never missing. It is through both adoration and thanksgiving that we acknowledge God as God and know him to be our Lord and our Saviour. The Immaculate Heart of Mary & St Dominic, Homerton Advent i {B} 3.xii.23
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