Advent

Sunday, 14 December 2025: Third Sunday in Advent: Joy

Robert

I have a very simple creed: that life and joy and beauty are better than dusty death, and I think when we listen to such music as we heard today we must all of us feel that the capacity to produce such music, and the capacity to hear such music, is a thing worth preserving and should not be thrown away in foolish squabbles. You may say it’s a simple creed, but I think everything important is very simple indeed. I’ve found that creed sufficient, and I should think that a great many of you would also find it sufficient, or else you would hardly be here.

— Bertrand Russell, Ninetieth birthday celebration speech (18 May 1962), as cited in his Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1944-1969 (1969)

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Sunday, 7 December 2025: Second Sunday in Advent: Peace

Robert

Peace is the mind’s old wilderness cut down –
A wider nation than the founders dreamed.
Peace is the main street in a country town;
Our children named; our parents’ lives redeemed.

Not scholar’s calm, nor gift of church or state,
Nor everlasting date of death’s release;
But careless noon, the houses lighted late,
Harvest and holiday: the people’s peace.

The peace not past our understanding falls
Like light upon the soft white tablecloth
At winter supper warm between four walls,
A thing too simple to be tried as truth.

Days into years, the doorways worn at sill,
Years into lives, the plans for long increase
Come true at last for those of God’s good will:
These are the things we mean by saying, Peace.

— John Holmes, “The People’s Peace”, Hymns for the Celebration of Life.

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Sunday, 30 November 2025: First Sunday in Advent: Hope

Robert

In a time of drastic change one can be too preoccupied with what is ending or too obsessed with what seems to be beginning. In either case one loses touch with the present and with its obscure but dynamic possibilities. What really matters is openness, readiness, attention, courage to face risk. You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope. In such an event, courage is the authentic form taken by love.

— Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (1966)

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Sunday, 22 December 2024: Fourth Sunday in Advent: Love

Robert

It seems to me that one of the happiest lessons in the gospel is that of love. We are told to love one another and to show that love by giving. And that love becomes more like that of God when we see Jesus Himself in those around us, as the apostles did… He taught them about love, about loving. The prodigal son, the sick, the lepers, the privileged, the tax-gatherers, the sinners, those in prison — in other words, loving the unlovable. Love is the reason for it all

— Dorothy Day, an undated entry in her diary, The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, edited by Robert Ellsberg (2008)

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Sunday, 15 December 2024: Third Sunday in Advent: Joy

Robert

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be severed, that is, that he shall be able to see the sky above him, and that he shall be able to enjoy the sunshine, the pure air, the fields with their verdure, their multitudinous life. Men have always regarded it as a great unhappiness to be deprived of all these things.

— Leo Tolstoy, My Religion, translated by Huntington Smith (1885)

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Sunday, 8 December 2024: Second Sunday in Advent: Peace

Robert

If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That’s the true practice of peace.

— Pema Chödrön, Practicing Peace in Times of War

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Sunday, 1 December 2024: First Sunday in Advent: Hope

Robert

Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

— Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace: A Conversation with Karel Hvížďala, translated by Paul Wilson (1990)

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Sunday, 24 December 2023: Fourth Sunday in Advent: Love

Robert

It seems to me that one of the happiest lessons in the gospel is that of love. We are told to love one another and to show that love by giving. And that love becomes more like that of God when we see Jesus Himself in those around us, as the apostles did… He taught them about love, about loving. The prodigal son, the sick, the lepers, the privileged, the tax-gatherers, the sinners, those in prison — in other words, loving the unlovable. Love is the reason for it all

— Dorothy Day, an undated entry in her diary, The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day, edited by Robert Ellsberg (2008)

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Sunday, 17 December 2023: Third Sunday in Advent: Joy

Robert

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between man and nature shall not be severed, that is, that he shall be able to see the sky above him, and that he shall be able to enjoy the sunshine, the pure air, the fields with their verdure, their multitudinous life. Men have always regarded it as a great unhappiness to be deprived of all these things.

— Leo Tolstoy, My Religion, translated by Huntington Smith (1885)

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Sunday, 10 December 2023: Second Sunday in Advent: Peace

Robert

If we want there to be peace in the world, we have to be brave enough to soften what is rigid in our hearts, to find the soft spot and stay with it. We have to have that kind of courage and take that kind of responsibility. That’s the true practice of peace.

— Pema Chödrön, Practicing Peace in Times of War

Email westforkuu@gmail.com or use our contact form for more information or write to us at PO Box 523, Clarksburg WV 26302