Advent week 1 - St Andrew, Apostle - The unheard music of our lives

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… is it possible that they did not hear?

(Romans 10:18)


Advent is about listening. I remember in my teens being haunted by the words of TS Eliot: ‘music heard so deeply that it is not heard at all'.  Like all poetry (and religion), those words don't make sense in terms of logic. But we know what they are trying to say. The most important things in life go unheard because of the din all around us. We're so caught up in the daily round of chores that the deeper meaning of things gets pushed aside - until, that is, something happens to draw back the veil of forgetting. In many ways, the pandemic has drawn back that veil, and we have begun to ‘listen' once again to the unheard music of our lives.


Today's gospel, the call of the disciples, including Andrew, whose feast it is today, shows how they responded to Jesus because they ‘heard' the call to new life. They recognised in Jesus someone who had broken through their daily round of fishing and mending nets with a call to something deeper.  If we are prepared to listen, we too are being called to something deeper.


Advent is an opportunity to listen to the deeper music of our lives, to set time aside to just stop, listen to the silence (how can you ‘hear' silence?), and allow something to emerge from it.  Allow the words of today's responsorial psalm to resonate in your heart: No speech, no word, no voice is heard yet their span goes forth through all the earth, their words to the utmost bounds of the world'.  What ‘word', what ‘voice'? Stay with the question this Advent.


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A meditation written by Fr Paul Graham O.S.A., Assistant General on the Augustinian Council for Northern Europe, including the Provinces of Ireland, England & Scotland, Poland, Germany, Austria and Slovakia

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Community prayer

Nativity Prayer of St Augustine

Let the just rejoice, for their Justifier is born. Let the sick and infirm rejoice, for their Savior is born. Let the captives rejoice, for their Redeemer is born. Let slaves rejoice, for their Master is born. Let free men rejoice, for their Liberator is born. Let all Christians rejoice, for Jesus Christ is born. St Augustine of Hippo (AD 354-440)

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Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer everyone. Col 4:6

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