‘The door of freedom has to be opened from the outside’ … the former prison cells in the Guildhall, Lichfield (Photograph: Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford
We come to end of the first week in Advent this morning [5 December 2015]. Throughout Advent this year, I am working through my own Advent Calendar. As we wait and prepare for Christmas, I invite you to join me each morning for a few, brief moments in reflecting on the meaning of Advent through the words of the great German theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945).
In his Letters and Papers from Prison, Bonhoeffer wrote:
“A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes – and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.”
Readings (Church of Ireland lectionary): Psalm 9; Amos 5: 18-27; Jude 17-25.
The Advent Collect:
Almighty God,
Give us grace to cast away the works of darkness
and to put on the armour of light
now in the time of this mortal life
in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility;
that on the last day
when he shall come again in his glorious majesty
to judge the living and the dead,
we may rise to the life immortal;
through him who is alive and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
Yesterday’s reflection
Continued tomorrow
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