your grace into our hearts...
This afternoon I took a walk along the Thames, catching the sun as it set on what had been a bright, sunshine-y Saturday. It's now the vigil of the Fourth Sunday of Advent. As our daylight hours have gradually decreased into winter darkness, the light on our Advent wreaths has been growing - in my case even more so, as last week I forsook greenery for a mirror base, in which each candle's lustre is lengthened.
Meanwhile, our Sunday Gospel has taken us back in time, thirty years or so; away from focusing on the adult Jesus and John the Baptist, back to when they were both still forming in their mothers' wombs. There is something truly wondrous in contemplating the Love which embraces and holds the universe choosing to become a tiny embryo in an ordinary young woman. The light is growing, yes; and so is the Love.
And this weekend, the Collect at Mass is the prayer we pray at the end of each Angelus. Familiarity can easily blunt our appreciation of something - seeing this prayer on its own, in a different context, makes it stand out more for me. And pour forth... your grace into our hearts... Pour in your grace, as you pour in your love (cf Romans 5.5)... Grace so surprising, strengthening, amazing, transforming... Gentle yet powerful; subtle yet apparent in its fruits...
For every time I have not prayed for your grace... For now, and every time I will need it... Pour forth I beseech you, O Lord, your grace into my heart... into all our hearts... throughout this wounded, divided, wonderful world, in which your Love continues to dwell among us...
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