I notice as I get off the train in the morning people are coming for their cancer treatments (this is obvious as they often have hair loss) usually husbands and wives but I was touched to see a son with his elderly mother a while back. Many of these people are waiting for the final coming of the Lord and are kind of goingthroguh themotions of treatments which just won't do it. It osunds funny matching waiting for death to Advent but really our whoel life is one great big Advent, waiting for the final coming. I know how tha tmust sound, like I am Dr Gruesome -death. But it is the truth. We are all of going to die Everyone and everything that ever lived are going throguh the door. In a way the world around us is just one boig Advent waitng room. THis does not sadden me but it does put everything in a whole new light. I think in a way many people are in a constant flight from death and aging and love to pretend it is happening. How sorry I am for people without Faith for without Faith ther eis no hope. It is no longer that life is a constant Advent , it is like waiting through life for a train tha tis just never going to come. I have put the two pups up for sale and they are ready to go down someones chimney!! ..and got a lovely shot of the Tabernacle at Clonard Monastery last Saturday doung Eucharistic Minister.
My favorite Christmas song and most appropriate for our time. A Child Shall Lead This song was made for our moment in time. It is where we are. A beautiful Christmas song by the family called The Interior Castle (a mom, son and three daughters) Once you open up this URL below click on the play button turn up the volume and enjoy. http://www.broadjam.com/artists/songs.php?artistID=3790&mediaID=66356 (Click on the song A Child Shall Lead) In reflecting this Advent on 'being lead', three blogs were just posted that are food for thought in what our Lord is asking of us all during this preparation for Christmas and the Second Coming. http://www.markmallett.com/blog/the-tiger-in-the-cage/ http://afterthewarning.com/messages...ous/2016/11/11-25-where-i-am-leading-you.aspx http://afterthewarning.com/messages...s/2016/11/11-24-paths-you-have-not-known.aspx
Beautiful Denis. I have to say the thought of the fact that I myself am going to die throws me a little. There is I think a part of me that thinks I am going to live forever. I heard a lady the other week say she had never seen another person die. I have seen a few, including violently , from gunshot wounds. The passing of a soul always fills me with a sense of awe. I get the files of people who die from the hospital, there are so many of them, of all ages. I f often pray for them, so may of them Protestants and if I don't pray for their poor souls ,who will? I suspect that this is how people without Faith handle death; they pretend they and everyone around them are immortal. But that is like a false curtain that just has to be ripped down sooner or later.
So yes, life is one bog long Advent, waiting for the Christmas of the Master's coming, listening for His feet. Which is why when we pray when we go to sleep at night, '...but if I die before I wake, I pray that God my sol will take.' ..and to Our Lady, '...now and at the hour of our death'.
I found it reflective, and actually appropriate for Advent . Our culture only wants to hear rainbows and unicorns, not the truth of life and death, virtue and sin. I just recently attended a funeral on my husband's side of the family, and assumed that I was the only one there secretly praying for his soul (all Protestants, and sobbing about how he was already in Heaven). In my condolences I vaguely said to the wife that I had been praying everyday, and she sobbed that she needed every prayer. Of course as a Catholic I found it slightly amusing that she assumed those prayers were for her - I just let this slide completely. Uncle Paul now knows that I've been praying for his soul, and that's what matters
I have never been to a Protestant funeral but I remember the Abbot of our Monastery coming back from the wake of a neighbouring Protestant farmer and remarking how sad it was that they were all sitting round and no one praying for his soul. Another side of the same Protestant coin is that mostly they have no conception of growth in holiness, of the mystical. When we look at things all around us, everything grows and is fecund. How could it be that the soul does not grow both in this life and in the life to come. It is such a sad way of looking at things. It takes a lot of the joy and excitement out of the spiritual life. The Protestant so called , 'Reformation' was such a disaster in so many respects, worst of perhaps being the loss of that mystical Crown , the Eucharist. Poor people. Poor, poor people.
I am sure your uncle Paul is eternally grateful. Eternally. Made me think of my Uncle Charlie and Aunt Eileen. Aunt Eileen did not presume Uncle Charlie was already in heaven. He met death suddenly with the rupture of an AAA. Aunt Eileen earnestly begged me to pray very very hard for the repose of his soul. Uncle Charlie was a good man and I was a bit shocked at the intensity of her request but I did what was asked. "It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins." 2 Macabees 12:46 I am sure Uncle Charlie is grateful too. Protestants are usually a little taken aback that I can quote scripture in favour of Purgatory,
Uncle Charlie and Aunt Eileen are long gone now. They had seven daughters then one son who died in childbirth just before a Christmas over 65 years ago. They called him Noel. An Advent baby. I wonder if Uncle Charlie had not "forgiven" God for taking his only son. Just thinking.
