Holy Spirit of God, let righteousness rain down and sprout up from the earth…

Isaiah 45:5-25

 
God’s righteousness is all about mercy.  As it’s Creator’s default plan for the world God’s mercy, or the goodness and rightness of God’s ways, comes in both sweet and severe forms. Make no mistake! Righteousness is not a syrupy coating for lives based on human ideals. Rather, righteousness rooted in mercy is a penetrating precipitation of God’s love and truth that comes to us more often during cloudy times, than during sunnier times of peace and joy – sometimes with rolling thunder and flashes of lightening that shake out complacency and false hope, shake down the realities of sacrificial love and shake into us the need for a loving relationship with Christ Jesus. When I am thus purified by God’s mercy, then righteousness has good soil on earth within my life in which to sprout and grow the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, generosity, gentleness and self-control. What better ‘Christmas gifts’ can there be? Will I recognize the plan and purpose (for me) in both the sweet and severe mercy of God to let righteousness sprout up? Holy Spirit of God, let righteousness rain down and sprout up from the earth.
 
Happy are those … whose delight is in the law of the Lord…they are like streams planted by streams of water, that yield their fruit in its season.  (Psalm 1:1,2)
 
The endurance of darkness is the preparation for great light.
St John of the Cross
 
Such a beautiful hymn for Advent: You Are Mine – by David Haas
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14pPevY5sd8&list=RD14pPevY5sd8&index=1
 
Soli ad gloriam Dei
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