Monday, December 24, 2012 — Week of 4 Advent, Year 1
Christmas Eve
[Go to http://www.missionstclare.com/english/index.html for an online version of the Daily Office including today’s scripture readings.]
Today’s Readings for the Daily Office (Book of Common Prayer, p. 938)
Morning Prayer
Psalms 45, 46
Isaiah 35:1-10
Revelation 22:12-17, 21
Luke 1:67-80
Evening Prayer – Christmas Eve
Psalms 89:1-29
Isaiah 59:15b-21
Philippians 2:5-11
Strengthen the weak hands,
and support the unsteady knees.
Say to those who are panicking:
“Be strong! Don’t fear!
Here’s your God,
…God will come to save you.” Isaiah 35:3f
From Austin Farrer:
How can I matter to him? we say. It makes no sense; he has the world, and even that he does not need. It is folly even to imagine him like myself, to credit him with eyes into which I could ever look, a heart that could ever beat for my sorrows or joys, and a hand he could hold out to me. For even if the childish picture be allowed, that hand must be cupped to hold the universe, and I am a speck of dust on the star-dust of the world.
Yet Mary holds her finger out, and a divine hand closes on it. The maker of the world is born a begging child; he begs for milk, and does not know that it is milk for which he begs. We will not lift our hands to pull the love of God down to us, but he lifts his hands to pull human compassion down upon his cradle. So the weakness of God proves stronger than men, and the folly of God proves wiser than men. Love is the strongest instrument of omnipotence, for accomplishing those tasks he cares most dearly to perform; and this is how he brings his love to bear on human pride; by weakness not by strength, by need and not by bounty.
[Austin Farrer, Said or Sung, London, 1960, p. 34-5; quoted in Robert Atwell, Celebrating the Seasons, Canterbury Press, Norwich, 1999]