“Stir our hearts, we beseech you, to prepare ourselves to receive your Son. When he comes and knocks, may he find us not sleeping in sin, but awake to righteousness, ceaselessly rejoicing in his love. May our hearts and minds be so purified, that we may be ready to receive his promise of eternal life.”
The Gelasian Sacramentary (500)
Gelasius became pope in 492. This sacramentary is the oldest prayer book of the Western Church.
It feels a living nightmare,
it feels like a mistake
and God, does He really care?
I wish that I could wake!
The life before seems but a dream,
an old forgotten story
lost, now, in the scream
of demons come to glory.
Where, the horse and rider?
Where, the trumpets blowing?
Who was the decider
of where I now am going?
I know that I am not asleep,
and I ask You, Lord, my soul to keep!
I don’t understand the reasons for your nightmare, Andrew, but I trust the One who has kept you so far will continue to keep you for eternity.
I trust that, too. He has His reasons, especially for a day like today, and it’s not my job nor necessarily my privilege to understand; it’s to endure, and to trust.