Tag: Vocation

What do you really want?

A reflection on what truly matters

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

treasure chest

Have you ever really, really wanted something? Not just wishing it, but with your whole being really wanting it? I’m thinking not just of objects, or presents, but more of achievements or particular situations you would like to be different. For example, you may want to do particularly well in a physics test, or be selected for the first team in netball or hockey. Maybe you want a particular relationship to be better, or – thinking big – peace in the world, or at least a bit more of it.

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Preparing the way of the Lord

A Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent
Isaiah 40.1-11 and Mark 1.1-8

advent 2

Advent, maybe more than any other time of the year, encourages us to reflect on the many paradoxes of faith, and through that, indeed, on the many paradoxes of life. In the darkest time of the year, we prepare ourselves for the light coming into the world. We are waiting for something that in many ways, though not all, has already happened. Many of us will go from Advent service to Christmas carol concert, and then back to our Advent devotion or worship.

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Advent: Expectation vs Reality

An early Advent Reflection

Advent is a season of expectation and preparation, as the Church prepares to celebrate the coming (adventus) of Christ in his incarnation, and also looks ahead to his final advent as judge at the end of time.

Van_Gogh_-_Country_road_in_Provence_by_nightAdvent is a season of expectation, a time during which we wait and prepare for Christmas. It is also the beginning of a new Church year, so even more than other days, we are given a new beginning; we can make a new start.

As all of us have experienced, the reality does not always coincide with our expectation: more often than not it doesn’t. Whether it is our expectation of ourselves, our expectations of others, many a time, the reality is not as good as we had expected, and we can feel let down, again by ourselves or by others. It is an experience so common, that I don’t even think I need to give an example. Continue reading “Advent: Expectation vs Reality” →