Grant, O Almighty God, that as thy blessed Son Jesus Christ at his first advent came to seek and to save that which was lost, so at his second and glorious appearing he may find in us the fruits of the redemption which he wrought; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God world without end.

The lyrics are:

Lo! He comes with clouds descending,
Once for favoured sinners slain;
Thousand thousand saints attending,
Swell the triumph of His train:
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
God appears on earth to reign

Every eye shall now behold Him
Robed in dreadful majesty;
Those who set at naught and sold Him,
Pierced and nailed Him to the tree,
Deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
Shall the true Messiah see.

The dear tokens of His passion
Still His dazzling body bears;
Cause of endless exultation
To His ransomed worshippers;
With what rapture, with what rapture
Gaze we on those glorious scars!

Yea, amen; let all adore thee,
High on thine eternal throne;
Saviour, take the power and glory;
Claim the kingdoms for thine own:
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Thou shalt reign, and thou alone.

Make us, we beseech thee, O Lord our God, watchful and heedful in awaiting the coming of thy Son Christ our Lord; that when he shall come and knock, he shall find us not sleeping in sin, but awake and rejoicing in his praises; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

“Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” #AdventSunday #Advent #HTT pic.twitter.com/zscshXr63k

— Amy (@amymeganbrown) December 2, 2018

The new app, available for iOS and Android, includes an introduction to Advent written by Bishop Sarah, who was installed as the 133rd Bishop of London at St Paul’s Cathedral on 12th May.

Bishop Sarah writes that:

“During St Paul’s Cathedral’s dramatic Advent service, a procession moves from darkness to light, mirrored by music and words, reflecting hope and despair. To appreciate the light and hope, you need to wait in the darkness. Advent is a time to be still in the midst of our busy lives. We should make space in the darkness to appreciate the light, and to find time to focus on hope.”

The app also includes a short daily Advent meditation, suitable for Christians or people on the edges of faith who wish to make the most of the season. SPCK’s most recent app, for Thy Kingdom Come 2018, was recently selected as App of the Year at the Premier Digital Awards 2018.

SPCK..[recently] released research from ComRes showing that 92% of British adults are aware of Advent, and 39% expect to do something to celebrate it….

Read it all.

Bishop of London launches new app to help people get the most out of Advent https://t.co/ztyplaoQhq

— St Michaels Enfield (@stmichaelsgh) November 25, 2018

A medieval friar’s cheery carol for the end of Advent: ‘Farewell Advent, Christmas is come!’ https://t.co/RBQvO3xIPR pic.twitter.com/S2tnw0Cl8O

— Eleanor Parker (@ClerkofOxford) December 24, 2016

15. This time of Christ’s feast natal,
We will be merry, great and small,
And thou shalt go out of this hall;
Farewell from us both all and some!

16. Advent is gone, Christmas is come;
Be we merry now, all and some!
He is not wise that will be dumb
In ortu Regis omnium. [At the coming of the King of all things]

Read it all from Eleanor Parker.

O God, who didst promise that thy glory should be revealed, and that all flesh should see it together: Stir up our hearts, we beseech thee, to prepare the way of thine only begotten Son; and pour out upon us thy loving kindness, that we who are afflicted by reason of our sins may be refreshed by the coming of our Saviour, and may behold his glory; who with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth one God, world without end.

Lord God Almighty, King of glory and love eternal, worthy art thou at all times to receive adoration, praise, and blessing; but especially at this time do we praise thee for the sending of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ, for whom our hearts do wait, and to whom, with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, be honour and dominion, now and for ever.

–Prayers for the Christian Year (SCM, 1964)

But he will come again, it’s said, though not
Unwanted and unsummoned; for all things,
Beasts of the field, and woods, and rocks, and seas,
And all mankind from end to end of the earth
Will call him with one voice. In our own time,
Some say, or at a time when time is ripe.
Then he will come, Christ the uncrucified,
Christ the discrucified, his death undone,
His agony unmade, his cross dismantled—
Glad to be so—and the tormented wood
Will cure its hurt and grow into a tree
In a green springing corner of young Eden,
And Judas damned take his long journey backward
From darkness into light and be a child
Beside his mother’s knee, and the betrayal
Be quite undone and never more be done

Read it all.

O Day-Spring, splendour of the light eternal, Sun of Righteousness: come, enlighten those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death. O King of nations, Whom they long for, Corner-stone Who makest all one, come and save mankind, whom Thou didst fashion out of the dust. O Emmanuel, our King and Law-giver, Desire of all nations and their Saviour: come and save us, O Lord our God.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

O Thou Who when Thou comest wilt take account of Thy servants: remember for good Thine eternal pact and promise in Thy Cross and Resurrection; in judgement forget not mercy; take not from us the help and comfort of Thy Holy Spirit; and suffer us not at that last hour to fall from Thee; Who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

You can listen directly here and download the mp3 there.

Kendall Harmon’s Sunday Sermon–Will You be Ready When Christ Comes? Learning from John the Witness (John 1:9-28) https://t.co/PgKMaUUAyC #sermons #advent #eschatology #bible John the witness vs last week John the baptizer pic.twitter.com/1T5ujF2HdM

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) December 20, 2017

A season that is all about family can be a desperately lonely time for people who find themselves living in isolation, grieving the loss of a loved one, or trying to cope with family stress. And for those of us who follow the church calendar, if Advent happens to come at a time when we are in a spiritually barren place, the call to open up our hearts to the season can intensify our experience of doubt or alienation.

Undoubtedly, some people are just not “feeling it” this Advent, due to temperament or circumstance or who knows what. Perhaps the season finds you at a South Pole of sadness or in a wilderness of spiritual alienation. If that’s the case, it’s important to remember that Advent is a season all about longing and emptiness and waiting. It is a season set aside to help us realize that we need deliverance from our current condition.

Read it all.

O Thou, Who hast foretold that Thou wilt return to judgement in an hour that we are not aware of: grant us grace to watch and pray always; that whether Thou shalt come at even, or at midnight, or in the morning, we may be found among the number of those servants who shall be blessed in watching for their Lord; to whom be all glory now and for evermore.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

O Lord, raise up, we pray Thee, Thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, Thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through the satisfaction of Thy Son our Lord, to Whom with Thee and the Holy Ghost be honour and glory, world without end.

O God, who didst send thy messengers and prophets to prepare the way of thy Son before him: Grant that our Lord when he cometh may find in us a dwelling prepared for himself; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who came to take our nature upon him that he might bring many sons unto glory, and now with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, ever one God, world without end.

–A New Prayer Book (London: Oxford University Press 1923)

O Lord Jesus Christ, before whose judgment-seat we must all appear and give account of the things done in the body: Grant, we beseech thee, that when the books are opened in that day, the faces of thy servants may not be ashamed; through thy merits, O blessed Saviour, who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

O Lord Jesus Christ, before Whose judgement seat we must all appear and give account of the things done in the body: grant, we beseech Thee, that, when the books are opened in that day, the faces of Thy servants may not be ashamed; through Thy merits, O blessed Saviour, Who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, world without end.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

A #Prayer 4 the Day from St Columba 'grant, we beseech Thee, that, when the books are opened in that day, the faces of Thy servants may not be ashamed; through Thy merits, O blessed Saviour' https://t.co/IYvWywZrhg #advent #eschatology #churchhistory pic.twitter.com/DHBJn9zWXq

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) December 16, 2017

O Lord Jesus Christ, who at thy first coming didst warn us to prepare for the day when thou shalt come to be our judge: Mercifully grant that being awake from the sleep of sin, we may always be watching and intent upon the work thou hast given us to do; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end.

The magnificent machinery of the eye! So finely tuned to fill the mind with color and shape, with light and beauty. And yet, so prone to misuse. An example and analogy of this misuse is found in the way we currently use our mobile devices. These are pieces of technology, with the power to retrieve astounding quantities of information in fractions of a second, that we regularly employ to consume all sorts of frivolities and—sometimes—even contents that could hinder the fruit of the Spirit in us.

Both Amos and Jesus denounce the deeds of the people whose attention has gone after worthless things. The prophet and the Word warn against the external piety that secretly longs for material gain and social acknowledgment. In his utterance, Amos depicts a terrible day of darkness, mourning, lamentation, sackcloth, and baldness. As a climactic conclusion for this list of consequences, Amos announces a thirst and a hunger that will remain unsatisfied. This hunger and thirst do not refer to material elements, but to the word of God. Consequently, the people who wander “from sea to sea” will be dismayed and perish.

Read it all.

O Heavenly Father, whose most dearly beloved Son has come once to save the world, and will come again to judge the world: Help us, we pray thee, to watch like servants who wait for the coming of their lord. May we abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost; and, having this hope, may we purify ourselves by thy grace, even as Christ is pure. Grant this, O Father, for his sake and for the glory of thy holy name.

Hope is one of the Theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ”˜thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.

–C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (San Francisco: Harper, 2001), p. 134

A #Prayer 4 the Feast Day of #CSLewis 'O God of searing truth and surpassing beauty, we give thee thanks for Clive Staples Lewis whose sanctified imagination lighteth fires of faith in young and old alike..' https://t.co/zutrJeQeyA #churchhistory #anglican pic.twitter.com/SymCAwGErG

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) November 22, 2017

O God, by whose command the order of time runs its course: Forgive, we pray thee, the impatience of our hearts; make perfect that which is lacking in our faith; and, while we tarry the fulfillment of thy promises, grant us to have a good hope because of thy word; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty God, that the solemn feast of our redemption which is now at hand, may help us both in this present life, and further us towards the attaining of thine eternal joy in that which is to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Prayers for the Christian Year (SCM, 1964)

Thou who with thine own mouth hast avouched that at midnight, at an hour when we are not aware, the Bridegroom shall come: Grant that the cry, The Bridegroom cometh, may sound evermore in our ears, that so we be never unprepared to meet him, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

O blessed Jesu, who didst come to us once in meekness, to be the Saviour of all men, and to show us the way of life; Grant me grace now to awake out of the sleep of sin, and to trim the oil of my soul with the oil of prayer and holiness; that, when Thou shalt again in power, with all Thy holy angels, to destroy the wicked, I may be found ready to meet Thee, and may receive Thee as my Redeemer and Saviour. Amen.

—The Narrow Way, Being a Complete Manual of Devotion with a Guide to Confirmation and Holy Communion (London: J. Whitaker and Sons, 1893)

Keep us, O Lord, while we tarry on this earth, in a serious seeking after thee, and in an affectionate walking with thee, every day of our lives; that when thou comest, we may be found not hiding our talent, nor serving the flesh, nor yet asleep with our lamp unfurnished, but waiting and longing for our Lord, our glorious God for ever and ever.

Grant, O Almighty God, that as thy blessed Son Jesus Christ at his first advent came to seek and to save that which was lost, so at his second and glorious appearing he may find in us the fruits of the redemption which he wrought; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God world without end.

You can listen directly there and download the mp3 there.

And so goes the drumbeat of commercialism: more, more, more.

All the while we Christians are called to answer Advent’s hushed invitation for less, less, less. To clear out our closets and turn off our phones, to resist the click-and-procure in favor of the wait-and-wonder. What a challenge it is to make space for the other, for the divine. Filling sets off all our bells and whistles; emptying requires discernment and allows for quiet.

Americans prefer the former. We have so much self-storage space, the Self Storage Association once pointed out, it is physically possible that every American could stand at the same time under the canopy of self-storage roofing.

I’ve been reflecting on the art of gift giving — what it can do for us, at its best, and what it neglects to do at its hastiest. The more you put in, the more you get out.

My neighbor recently showed me her favorite Christmas picture book, Holly Hobbie’s 2007 charmer “Toot & Puddle: Let It Snow,” in which a pair of best friends — who happen to be pigs — struggle to determine the perfect gifts for each other. Puddle labors in his attic, painting an image of the twosome in the woods. Toot, meanwhile, spends “every spare minute in his workshop in the basement” building a sled on wheels — one that will work with or without snow.

“He knew that the best present was usually something you made yourself, a one-of-a-kind thingamajig, not just a whatsit anyone could buy in a store,” Hobbie writes.

Indeed, the sweetest gifts require a commodity more precious than treasure: time.

Read it all.

To prevent his disciples from asking the time of his coming, Christ said: “About that hour no one knows, neither the angels nor the Son. It is not for you to know times or moments.” He has kept those things hidden so that we may keep watch, each of us thinking that he will come in our own day. If he had revealed the time of his coming, his coming would have lost its savour: it would no longer be an object of yearning for the nations and the age in which it will be revealed. He promised that he would come but did not say when he would come, and so all generations and ages await him eagerly.

Though the Lord has established the signs of his coming, the time of their fulfilment has not been plainly revealed. These signs have come and gone with a multiplicity of change; more than that, they are still present. His final coming is like his first. As holy men and prophets waited for him, thinking that he would reveal himself in their own day, so today each of the faithful longs to welcome him in his own day, because Christ has not made plain the day of his coming.

He has not made it plain for this reason especially, that no one may think that he whose power and dominion rule all numbers and times is ruled by fate and time. He described the signs of his coming; how could what he has himself decided be hidden from him? Therefore, he used these words to increase respect for the signs of his coming, so that from that day forward all generations and ages might think that he would come again in their own day.

Keep watch; when the body is asleep nature takes control of us, and what is done is not done by our will but by force, by the impulse of nature. When deep listlessness takes possession of the soul, for example, faint-heartedness or melancholy, the enemy overpowers it and makes it do what it does not will. The force of nature, the enemy of the soul, is in control.

When the Lord commanded us to be vigilant, he meant vigilance in both parts of man: in the body, against the tendency to sleep; in the soul, against lethargy and timidity. As Scripture says: “Wake up, you just,” and “I have risen, and am still with you;” and again, “Do not lose heart. Therefore, having this ministry, we do not lose heart.”

–From a commentary on the Diatessaron (the single gospel harmony of the early Syriac church), by St Ephrem (ca. 306 – 373)

Saint Ephrem–Keep watch: he is 2 come again https://t.co/l3EGqAd6nc 'As holy men and prophets waited for him, thinking that he wd reveal himself in their own day, so 2day each of the faithful longs 2 welcome him in his own day, bec Christ has not made plain the day of his coming pic.twitter.com/bEYLYromax

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) December 4, 2017