Francisco Fernández-Carvajal - In Conversation with God - Volume 1 Part 1: Advent

Francis Fernandez

In Conversation

with God

Meditations for each day of the year

Volume 1 Part 1

SCEPTER

London

This edition of In Conversation with God Volume 1 Part 1: Advent is published: in England by Scepter (U.K.) Ltd., 21 Hinton Avenue, Hounslow TW4 6AP; e mail: scepter@pobox.com.

This is a translation of Hablar con Dios Vol I , first published in 1986 by Ediciones Palabra, Madrid, and in 1988 by Scepter.

With ecclesiastical approval

Original Fomento de Fundaciones (Fundacin Internacional), Madrid, 1986

Translation Scepter, London, 1988

This edition Scepter, London, 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Scepter (U.K.).

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Fernandez Carvajal, Francis

In Conversation with God Volume 1 Part 1

Advent

1. Christian life Daily Readings

I Title II Hablar con Dios English

242.2

ISBN-13 (e-book) ISBN-13 (printed)

Volume 7 978-0-906138-36-6

Volume 6 978-0-906138-25-0

Volume 5 978-0-906138-24-3

Volume 4 978-0-906138-23-6

Volume 3 978-0-906138-22-9

Volume 2 978-0-906138-21-2

Volume 1 978-0-906138-20-5

Complete set 978-0-906138-19-9

Volume 1 Part 1 978-0-906138-84-7

Volume 1 Part 2 978-0-906138-85-4

Volume 2 Part 1 978-0-906138-86-1

Volume 2 Part 2 978-0-906138-87-8

Volume 6 Part 1 978-0-906138-51-9

Volume 6 Part 2 978-0-906138-68-7

Volume 7 Part 1 978-0-906138-63-2

Volume 7 Part 2 978-0-906138-72-4

Cover design & set in England by KIP Intermedia.

IN CONVERSATION WITH GOD i
Advent i

CONTENTS

* * * * *

Table of Moveable Feasts

Year First Sunday Ash Wed- Easter Ascension Pentecost

of Advent nesday

2011 27-Nov

2012 02-Dec 22-Feb 08-Apr 17-May 27-May

2013 01-Dec 13-Feb 31-Mar 09-May 19-May

2014 30-Nov 05-Mar 20-Apr 29-May 08-Jun

2015 29-Nov 18-Feb 05-Apr 14-May 24-May

2016 27-Nov 10-Feb 27-Mar 05-May 15-May

2017 03-Dec 01-Mar 16-Apr 25-May 04-Jun

2018 02-Dec 14-Feb 01-Apr 10-May 20-May

2019 01-Dec 06-Mar 21-Apr 30-May 09-Jun

2020 15-Nov 26-Feb 12-Apr 21-May 31-May

2021 07-Nov 17-Feb 04-Apr 13-May 23-May

2022 20-Nov 02-Mar 17-Apr 26-May 05-Jun

2023 03-Dec 22-Feb 09-Apr 18-May 28-May

2024 01-Dec 14-Feb 31-Mar 09-May 19-May

2014 30-Nov 05-Mar 20-Apr 29-May 08-Jun

QUICK ACCESS TO CONTENTS

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December

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FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

1. ADVENT:
IN EXPECTATION OF OUR LORD

1.1 Keeping watch in the period before the coming of the Messiah.

Grant your faithful, we pray, almighty God, the resolve to run forth to meet your Christ with righteous deeds at his coming, so that, gathered at his right hand, they may be worthy to possess the heavenly Kingdom.

Everybody knows, even those of us who have lived most unadventurously, says Ronald Knox in a sermon on Advent, what it is to plod on for miles, it seems, eagerly straining your eyes towards the lights that, somehow, mean home. How difficult it is, when you are doing that to judge distances! In pitch darkness, it might be a couple of miles to your destination, it might be a few hundred yards. So it was, I think, with the Hebrew prophets, as they looked forward to the redemption of their people. They could not have told you, within a hundred years, within five hundred years, when it was the deliverance would come. They only knew that, some time, the stock of David would burgeon anew; some time, a key would be found to fit the door of their prison house; some time, the light that only showed, now, like a will o the wisp on the horizon would broaden out, at last, into the perfect day.

This attitude of expectation is one which the Church wants to encourage in us, her children, permanently. She sees it as an essential part of our Christian drill that we should still be looking forward; getting on for two thousand years, now, since the first Christmas Day came and went, and we must still be looking forward. So she encourages us, during Advent, to take the shepherd folk for our guides, and imagine ourselves travelling with them, at dead of night, straining our eyes towards that chink of light which streams out, we know, from the cave at Bethlehem.

When the Messiah came, few really were expecting him. He came unto his own and his own received him not. Most men of that time had been blind to what was most essential in their lives and in the life of the world.

Watch, therefore , Our Lord tells us in todays gospel. Wake from sleep , St Paul echoes. For we too can forget what is most fundamental in our existence, what our life here on earth is about.

Summon the nations, say to the peoples: See, our God and Saviour is coming! Tell it, proclaim it; cry aloud.

The Church reminds us of this with a four week period of preparation, so that we can get ourselves ready to celebrate Christmas once more. And at the same time so that, with the first coming to the world of God made Man, we may be heedful of those other advents of God first when we die, and then again at the end of time. The holy season is thus a time of preparation and of hope.

Come, O Lord, and do not delay. Let us make straight His path...The Lord is soon to arrive. If we are aware that our sight is clouded and that we dont see clearly the radiance emanating from Bethlehem, from the infant Jesus, it is time to rid ourselves of whatever impairs our vision. Now is the time for a specially good examination of conscience and for a thorough interior purification which will befit us to receive and to welcome that expected guest who is God. It is the moment to take note of the things that separate us from Him, to loosen their hold and cast them from us. Our examination, then, must penetrate to the very roots of our actions and scrutinize deep down in our hearts the motives which inspire our actions.

1.2 The principal enemies of our sanctity: the three concupiscences. Confession, a way of preparing for Christmas.

As we really do want, not vaguely but seriously, to draw and be drawn closer to God at this time, let us look down into our souls in depth. There we will find the real enemies that sustain their unremitting warfare to keep us away from Him. There, in one form or another, are the main obstacles that obstruct and hinder the growth of our Christian life: the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.

The lust of the flesh is not confined only to the disordered tendencies of the senses in general or to the disorder of sensuality in particular. It also refers to that love of comfort, to that reluctance to stir ourselves or even to be alert, which drives us to seek that which is least uncomfortable, what is most pleasurable, the path offered us that seems the shorter and less arduous, even at the cost of our failing in faithfulness to God.

The other enemy is the lust of the eyes, a deep seatedgreed that sees nothing of value in what cannot be laid hands on.

The eyes of the soul are dulled; reason thinks itself to be self sufficient, dispensing with God as unnecessary. It is a subtle temptation supported by the dignity of the very intelligence our Father God has given us that we may know and love him freely. Seduced by this temptation, the human intelligence regards itself as the centre of the universe, reverting with delight to the words of the serpent in Genesis, you shall be like Gods (Gen 3:5) and, being filled with love of self, turns its back on Gods love.

Our existence can, in this way, surrender itself unconditionally into the hands of the third enemy, pride of life. This is not merely a matter of ephemeral fantasies, the fanciful products of vanity or self love: it is an all embracing presumption. Let us not fool ourselves; this is the worst of all evils, the root of every conceivable deviation.