It is entirely possible, though I do not know for
certain, that the secular practice of making a resolution on the first day of
the calendar year came from the Christian idea, on the first day of the Church
year, today, of consecrating the entire year ahead to more devoted and faithful
service to God and our fellow people. It
is even possible that this Christian idea of renewed hope and promise at the
new year came from an earlier Jewish tradition.
Just as those who have clinked their glasses at the
fading notes of Auld Lang Syne tend to forget rapidly any such
resolutions made under the influence of self-administered fortification, we
should ask ourselves if we fare any better year by year. Indeed, with the multi-faceted themes in
Advent of: preparing for the annual celebration of our Lord’s Nativity,
preparing for His promised Second Coming with the attendant four last things of
Death, Judgement, Heaven, and Hell, the idea of a renewed personal dedication
of ourselves, our souls and bodies to God, may get shunted aside altogether
without even a thought.
However, in terms of the overall Advent theme of
preparation, a renewed personal commitment should be for most of us, at the
very top of the list, as such a commitment, devoutly made and kept is very much
also a preparation, one that is of eternal importance to each of us when we
look ahead to our Lord’s return and the Judgement that follows. In our readings today it is very easy to come
away thinking only of the primary Advent theme of our Lord’s Coming; however,
all of the readings today place before us this secondary theme of personal
preparedness almost as strongly.
The exhortation that we just heard read reminds us
of it at both the beginning and the end, “all persons diligently to try and
examine themselves, before they presume to eat of that Bread, and drink of that
Cup.” We are then reminded of the
purpose of such an exercise in terms of having “penitent hearts” and “true
faith,” else we are in grave danger if we presume to receive the Sacrament
unworthily. Intensely personal
reparation. Then at the end of the
exhortation, “submitting ourselves [completely] to His holy will and pleasure,
and studying to serve Him in true holiness and righteousness all the days of
our life.” Personal preparation and resolution.
The well known Collect for Advent Sunday, which we
repeat daily until Christmas, uses contrasting images to underscore the theme
of preparation: darkness and armour of light; mortal life and life immortal;
humility and glorious Majesty. And while
the prayer is worded in the first person plural, as are all Collects, the gist
of it is intensely personal. Perhaps in
our personal prayers at home we might even venture occasionally to read it in
the first person singular, “Almighty God, give me grace to cast away the works
of darkness, and put upon me the armour of light.”
In the Epistle, St. Paul lays before us the essential nature of the Law as regards our behaviour towards our fellow pilgrims in this earthly life. But then he quite abruptly launches into the profoundly important need for personal alertness and preparation as we all approach “the day.” He too uses contrasts just as we heard in the Collect: wakefulness vs. sleep; night vs. day; darkness vs. armour of light; rioting, drunkenness, chambering, wantonness, strife and envying vs. honesty; and, most importantly, wearing, as it were, the lusts of the flesh vs. “putting on” our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
In passing we might correctly observe that this
particular Epistle for Advent Sunday more strongly emphasizes this need for
personal sanctification than it does the theme of our Lord’s Coming, which is
only somewhat abstractly mentioned by St. Paul when he says, “our salvation is
nearer than when we believed.”
On the other hand, a reading of the Gospel might, at
first glance, lead us to conclude the opposite in terms the emphasis. The great Palm Sunday procession of our Lord
into Jerusalem, fulfilling the prophecy of Zechariah, “Behold, thy King cometh
unto thee.” The Advent of our Lord.
But rather than logically ending at the crowds
proclaiming, “Hosanna in the highest,” as we do on Palm Sunday when we read
this passage as the Gospel of the Palms, the Advent Sunday reading continues
right through the episode of the cleansing of the Temple. So graphic is that scene that we tend to
ponder it only so deeply as the face value of the zeal of our Lord for His
Temple in Jerusalem, and we might not pause to consider any message otherwise.
Think, if you will, of St. Paul’s comments in
Chapter 3 of his first letter to the Church in Corinth, “Know ye not that ye
are the temple of God … If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God
destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Cor. 3,
16 -17).
Now I don’t know about any of the rest of us here,
but I should much prefer to invite my Lord into this temple - me - and I should
like very much to be a willing participant in the cleansing of my soul and
spirit. Much to be preferred I should
think that to have Him burst in uninvited, throwing over tables as it were.
Perhaps many of us here don’t feel that such a
cleansing, such preparation is necessary.
If anyone has attained to a sufficient measure of personal
sanctification and holiness that they deserve to admitted into the nearer
presence of God, then we should all rejoice for that person. However, I suspect that most, if not all of
us, are very far indeed from having advanced to such an exalted degree of
purity of mind, soul and spirit.
Think, if you will, of St. Paul, again using
contrasts, just a bit earlier in the same Chapter 3 of his first letter to the
Church in Corinth. In making the
contrast of spiritual maturity against those, like so many of us who need much cleansing,
he states, “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as
unto carnal … For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you
envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” (1
Cor. 3. 1, 3).
Perhaps many of us, hopefully most of us, are not engaged, either within the parish or in our contacts outside, in “envying, strife and divisions”; but it must honestly be observed that such does occur from time to time. Or consider: being swift to anger and slow to forgive; gossiping about others; lack of faith, hope and charity; criticism; abuse of food; lust; envy; jealousy; hard words spoken in hastiness or passion; failure of self-control; greed; unworthy or defiling thoughts, resulting in our being unwilling even to speak to certain other members of the parish; complaining; lack of thankfulness; and the list goes on.
In terms of such “spots” on our souls where they
involve other people, it is a good thing that most of our people can
acknowledge such faults with true contrition, seeking forgiveness both from God
and, if transgressions have been committed against others, also seeking
forgiveness from those whom they might have wronged. But it is still a great struggle for most of
us to expunge whatever besetting tendency that we might have - let us say, for
example, flashes of anger when caught unpleasantly by surprise. We may have been praying for healing from
such behaviour for many years without any apparent progress.
Without spoiling what is coming up next Saturday on
our Quiet Day, I would encourage any and all who have been making a genuine
attempt at ridding themselves of habitual sins, but without success, to come
and learn about Mental Prayer. I cannot
guarantee that learning about Mental Prayer and practising it will magically
cleanse us from besetting sins; however, when practised faithfully and
diligently, most people will make significant progress in that regard.
As has been observed by spiritual writers throughout
Christian history, it is those who feel that they need such help the most who
actually are further along in terms of spiritual progress - sanctification -
and those who don’t feel that they need such help who actually do need it
most. One of the particular benefits of
Mental Prayer is that, practised honestly, our meditations will strip off our
normally self-centred way of thinking about ourselves, rather encouraging us to
see ourselves as God sees us, and in so doing, to be more highly motivated in
seeking to cleanse our minds and souls, our temples.
The chosen topic of Mental Prayer is quite
appropriate to Advent, as it deals with our spiritual progress, which is to
say, our preparation. In terms of a
Church New Year’s resolution, ideally, any who come will make Mental Prayer a
regular part of their prayer life throughout the year. After all, our Lord did say that His return,
His Second Advent will be like a thief in the night and that we should watch
and pray at all times - be prepared.
May we bow our heads. “O eternal God, make my body and soul to be
an holy temple, purified for the habitation of Thy Holy Spirit. Cast out of it, O Lord, all worldly
affections, all covetous desires; let it be a place of prayer and holy
meditation; of pure intentions, and zealous desires of pleasing Thee; so that,
loving Thee above all the world, and worshipping Thee continually in humblest
adoration, I may be prepared to glorify Thee to all eternity in heaven; through
Jesus Christ our Lord.” Amen. (Jeremy Taylor [ 1613-1667)
ANNUNCIATION OTTAWA 2006 CLRK