Lately, I have been preoccupied with family and other matters and have not been posting. I have still been reading, praying the office, participating in different capacities at the Eucharist, and teaching a weekly Bible study. In some ways, such reduced activities have increased the meaning of Advent as a season of waiting and preparation for the various ways Christ has come, keeps coming and will come again.
In this context, the BCP Advent seasonal collect (Advent I) seems more appropriate than ever:
Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.
