Friday, 5 December, 2020

                                                __________________Psalm 16:7_

        

                I will 

               bless 

             the 

          Lord 

      who gives

    me counsel; 

   my heart _

 teaches me  night after night. 

Clement of Alexandria, 

  Titus Flavius Clemens, 

Κλήμης ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς  

            150-215 

(can the dates be right!?) was born in Athens, died in Jeru-salem, and was a priest, theologian and phil-osopher who taught at the Catechet-ical School of Alexandria. 

It’s is jokingly but all too correctly said that God made us in his own image and we have been returning the favor ever since. While God himself in unchanging (and is unberserkable as Sr Electa quotes her friend saying) our understanding of him is always changing and growing and what we think is  immutable mutates. When I first came to St David’s and we were celebrating midweek Eucharist, where I first met the "lesser  ie non biblical saints." Clement’s collect read “Turn your Church from the conceits of worldly wisdom and… guide int into all truth…” Now (as of I think 1992) it reads ‘grant that your Church may recognize true wisdom, wherever it is found, knowing that  wisdom comes from and leads to you…” 

Thursday evening

                                          __________________Psalm 18: 29_ 

 

                You,

                 O 

                Lord,

                are 

                my 

                lamp; 

                my 

               God

               you 

               make

                   my 

                      darkness bright

Thursday, 4 December, 2020*

                             _________________________Psalm 18:1a_

I 

love 

you, 

O Lord, my strength

 

* John of Damascus, 

who died  ~760

Syrian a  monk & priest who was the author of the Easter hymn, “Come, ye faithful, raise the strain of trium-phal gladness,” among others, and he was a defender of  the veneration of icons after 

the Byzantine Emperor issued an edit against the veneration of icons in 726, the 

year John was ordained. 

https://youtu.be/-J4ikNMZCBA

Weird to see all this once familiar sight from the olden days -  a large congregation packing the church? jammed into church together? Oh yea, that was last year… and a world away.

Wednesday evening

 ___________________________________Palm 13:5_

…I put 

my trust 

in your 

mercy; 

my heart 

is joyful because 

of your saving help. 

______________________________________

Wednesday, 2 December, 2020 *

                                         ________________Psalm 119:10_ 

 

   

 

  With 

      my 

       whole 

         heart 

    I seek you; 

      do not let

       me stray

         from your commandments.         

 * Charles de Foucauld, 

      1818 - 1916 

     French aristocrat 

 and Army officer who 

became a priest and a 

hermit n the Algerian 

         desert

                

             Loving God, 

      who restored the 

 Charles' Christian faith  

                     through an encounter with 

               Islam in North Africa…Help us to

       know you wherever we find you.... Collect        

Tuesday evening

                                  ___________A Psalm 10 Antiphon_

Surely, 

 Lord,  

  you 

behold 

trouble 

   and 

misery; 

   you behold it 

      and take it into your hand.

Tuesday, 1 December, 2020*

                                                ______________Psalm 5:3_

                In the 

                morning  

               Lord, you 

               hear my 

              voice; early  

              in the morn-

              ing  I make 

              my appeal 

                  and 

                   watch

                       for 

                          you.

________________ 

* Nicholas Ferrar

         1592-1653

          deacon, 

who founded a  community at  Little Gidding in  England which lives on in one  of TS Eliot’s 

                                                                 Four Quarters

__________________________