Advent Meditations: Monday 18 December

Dec 18, 2017 by Jill

Monday Advent III

 Liturgical Feast for Today :  St. Modestos, Monk & Archbishop of Jerusalem, 634. After becoming a monk, he became head of the monastery of Saint Theodosios the Great (founded in the IV Century) in Palestine. At this time (the year 614), military forces of the Persian emperor Chosroes fell upon Syria and Palestine, killing 90 thousand Christians and laying waste the Christian churches. The Jerusalem Patriarch,  Zakharias and a multitude of Christians together with the Cross of the Lord were taken into captivity. Saint Modestos was entrusted to temporarily govern the Jerusalem Church in the capacity of locum tenens of the patriarchal cathedra. With the help of the Alexandrian Patriarch, Modestos set about the restoring of devastated Christian holy places. After 14 years, Patriarch Zakharias returned from, and after his death Saint Modestos became Patriarch of Jerusalem. St Modestos died at age 97 in the year 634.

Also today we mark Antiphon #2 O Adonai – O LORD OF ISRAEL, – Adonai is Hebrew for Lord.  Lord is the substitute term for Yahweh, the sacred, saving, Gospel name of God under the old covenant.  “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘Yahweh the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’”  This is my name for ever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations.”  To say Adonai is to say Yahweh, the Name that saves.  Where God’s Name is, there is holy ground.  The Lord is present!  Is that true when we speak God’s name? What context do we say it in? Is that a holy way?

 Biblical Meditation :  In today’s  Psalm the underlying tone is mindful that we all have some difficult days in life. We often vent frustration and anger at God. How often have we found ourselves being very much like the author of Ps. 44 voicing anger and frustration at God over things I know that I have no control over, or because things I have wanted to go my way, have gone completely differently? The Advent/Christmas /Epiphany season should be the time when people of faith are the last one to come across in such a way and yet oft times we are the first. WHY? Well we want things perfect for Christmas, the table, the decorations, the ambience etc. Ironically there was only one thing perfect at that first Christmas and that was the Christ. Perhaps that should be the focus and if we might be less incline to cry out to God in frustration over that which is not as consequential. PRAYER:  O God enable us, we pray, to attain the joys of the promise of salvation,
and to celebrate them always with solemn worship and glad rejoicing.  Cast light on the darkness of our hearts, visit us with the grace of your Son. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.  Spiritual Discipline /Activity – Mindful of the thematic of today’s Psalm, take 15 minutes out of your day just to contemplate God and to praise Him for everything He has done for you and for the world around you. This is what true fellowship with God is! Then, pray to Him first of all in forgiveness, then thankfulness, and lastly bring your requests before Him.

ANCIENT WISDOM/PRESENT GRACE: “God, Who is everywhere, never leaves us. Yet He seems sometimes to be present, sometimes to be absent. If we do not know Him well, we do not realize that He may be more present to us when He is absent than when He is present.” ― Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

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