Ears to Hear – Advent 9

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Sermon by St Augustine (171)

It’s nearly Christmas! After weeks of waiting, the day of the Birth of our Lord is just around the corner. Today’s reading is a reminder then, to get things in perspective. If you have been absorbed recently in the commercial side of Christmas, St Augustine’s reading reminds us of the true meaning of the season: ‘Wake up, O man’, he says, ‘it was for you that God was made man!’

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Ears to Hear – Advent 8

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Homily of St Bernard (141)

Throughout the twenty centuries of Christianity, writers and preachers have been falling over each other trying to do justice to Mary, the Mother of God. Perhaps the most successful in this regard is St Bernard of Clairvaux. He was a Cistercian monk and he had an enormous impact on the Europe of his day. Here, though, we see his tender side, as he addresses our blessed Mother. Appropriately for this stage of Advent, he turns to the moment when the Word became flesh, when Mary said Yes to what God was asking of her.

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