Friday 12 December
Antiphon: [The righteous] are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.
Les Noces de Cana, Louis Kahn, 1949.
"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!” (Matthew 11.19)
Sonnets for Mary of Nazareth: III, by John Burt.
Because he was so plain a god, so calm,
Riding at her heart like any child,
A stirring and attentive passenger
Wakeful in her wordless rush of breath,
She would have been amused, not terrified.
What did he have in mind? she thought at nights
While patient Joseph snored and shepherds woke
It came to her at last: he didn’t know;
He himself would catch it up from her.
What could he want, except to want like her?
To know what weakness is, and casualty,
How being done to teaches her to be,
How losing love enables her to learn
To make of fear her honor and of death her gift.
— from The Way Down. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Dancing God,
you exult over us with joy;
as we celebrate what has past
renew us by your love
that we may face the future with hope and joy;
through our Saviour Jesus Christ,
who is alive with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever. Amen.
— Bosco Peters
Isaiah 48:17-19
Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God, who teaches you for your own good, who leads you in the way you should go. O that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your prosperity would have been like a river, and your success like the waves of the sea; your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.
Psalm 1
Happy are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or take the path that sinners tread, or sit in the seat of scoffers;
but their delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law they meditate day and night.
They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither. In all that they do, they prosper.
The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away.
Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;
for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
Matthew 11:16-19
‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another: "We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn." For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He has a demon"; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!" Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958). The Truth Sent from Above. Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge, dir. Michael Waldron, 23 Nov 2023
This is the truth sent from above,
the truth of God, the God of love;
therefore don't turn me from the door
but hearken all, both rich and poor.
The first thing which I will relate,
that God at first did man create;
the next thing which to you I tell—
woman was made with man to dwell.
Thus we were heirs to endless woes
till God the Lord did interpose;
and so a promise soon did run:
that he would redeem us by his Son.
And at the season of the year
our blest Redeemer did appear,
and here did live, and here did preach,
and many thousands he did teach.
Thus in love to us he behaved,
to show us how we must be saved;
and if you want to know the way,
be pleased to hear what he did say.
May the Lord, when he comes, find us watching and waiting. Amen.