Can it really be

that Last Sunday of the Church Year again?  Wow.  Tempus fugit big time!  Advent will be here a week from today - at sunset on Saturday.  I know it's a truism, but I can't get over the increase in the feeling of the speed of time.  Like we're rushing towards the waterfall, ever swifter does the stream flow.  Against the hurry the Church bids us slow down and enter an eternal rest, a peaceful and calm moving stream that counters the rapid flow of life in this fallen age.  His kairos breaking into and transforming our chronos. As Advent begins, take time, people loved by God, for the Advent services of Christ's Church.  They are an oasis of calm in the midst of a world of hurry, hurry.  They bid us slow down, greet the evening light, sing Psalms and hymns, hear the Words of God, and ponder their meaning, sing with the Blessed Virgin her song, and then lift up our intercessions to the throne of grace, and go forth into this world having touched for a while the Peace that is at this universe's center:  the very love of God whose love for us brought Him to the Virgin's womb, the manger, the cross, the tomb, and the Father's right hand.