Just one of those little things that jump out at you when you read the Liturgy of the Hours. Something you've seen a million times suddenly hits you with new meaning.
Yesterday evening, it was that phrase , "in the fullness of time" in the canticle from Ephesians 1: 3-10. It's literal meaning: in the plan of salvation, God does everything at just the right moment, when the time is ripe, when the world is ready. This applies to the Incarnation, the Birth of Jesus, His death for our salvation. It also applies to the ongoing work of salvation, and the culmination of all things, when He returns and this present world is brought to an end. In the fullness of time. Not at the time when I think it should happen, not at the time when televangelists poring over the book of Revelation say it will happen. It will happen in God's good time, and that will be the perfect time.
We should find that immensely consoling. No need to fret about whether we are in the Last Days, and whether this or that prophecy from this or that apparition applies to our lifetime or ten lifetimes from now.
By extension to the moral sense, that is, how this applies to me personally: all the workings of grace in our own little lives will also occur in the fullness of time. As God wills, when God wills. Also immensely consoling.
That's what jumped out at me yesterday. Has anything in your daily liturgical prayer jumped out at you lately? Feel free to share that, AND/OR to ask any questions about the Liturgy of the Hours: how to say it properly, why to do it at all, etc. Whatever is on your mind about the breviary is a fitting subject for the comments below.
Welcome, new blog follower Ted.
Yesterday evening, it was that phrase , "in the fullness of time" in the canticle from Ephesians 1: 3-10. It's literal meaning: in the plan of salvation, God does everything at just the right moment, when the time is ripe, when the world is ready. This applies to the Incarnation, the Birth of Jesus, His death for our salvation. It also applies to the ongoing work of salvation, and the culmination of all things, when He returns and this present world is brought to an end. In the fullness of time. Not at the time when I think it should happen, not at the time when televangelists poring over the book of Revelation say it will happen. It will happen in God's good time, and that will be the perfect time.
We should find that immensely consoling. No need to fret about whether we are in the Last Days, and whether this or that prophecy from this or that apparition applies to our lifetime or ten lifetimes from now.
By extension to the moral sense, that is, how this applies to me personally: all the workings of grace in our own little lives will also occur in the fullness of time. As God wills, when God wills. Also immensely consoling.
That's what jumped out at me yesterday. Has anything in your daily liturgical prayer jumped out at you lately? Feel free to share that, AND/OR to ask any questions about the Liturgy of the Hours: how to say it properly, why to do it at all, etc. Whatever is on your mind about the breviary is a fitting subject for the comments below.
Welcome, new blog follower Ted.
