#EpiscopalAdvent #Shaken

#Shaken but not moved #EpiscopalAdvent Couvent Ste Marguerite, Cathedrale Ste Trinite #EgliseEpiscopale #Haiti 

St. Margaret's Convent, Port-au-Prince
January 2010 following the earthquake
Sent to us by one of our Sisters

Holy Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Port-au-Prince
2010
(NB: third-hand photo, at least - don't have original source, and it's nowhere else to be Googled)

An excerpt from 

The Shaking Reality of Advent

Alfred Delp

If we want Advent to transform us – our homes and hearts, and even nations – then the great question for us is whether we will come out of the convulsions of our time with this determination: Yes, arise! It is time to awaken from sleep. a waking up must begin somewhere. It is time to put things back where God intended them. It is time for each of us to go to work – certain that the Lord will come – to set our life in God’s order wherever we can. Where God’s word is heard, he will not cheat us of the truth; where our life rebels he will reprimand it.

We need people who are moved by the horrific calamities and emerge from them with the knowledge that those who look to the Lord will be preserved by him, even if they are hounded from the earth.

The Advent message comes out of our encounter with God, with the gospel. It is thus the message that shakes – so that in the end the entire world shall be shaken. The fact that the son of man shall come again is more than a historic prophecy; it is also a decree that God’s coming and the shaking up of humanity are somehow connected. If we are inwardly inert, incapable of being genuinely moved, if we become obstinate and hard and superficial and cheap, then God himself will intervene in world events. He will teach us what it means to be placed in turmoil and to be inwardly stirred. Then the great question to us is whether we are still capable of being truly shocked – or whether we will continue to see thousands of things that we know should not be and must not be and yet remain hardened to them. In how many ways have we become indifferent and used to things that ought not to be?

Being shocked, however, out of our pathetic complacency is only part of Advent. There is much more that belongs to it. Advent is blessed with God’s promises, which constitute the hidden happiness of this time. These promises kindle the light in our hearts. Being shattered, being awakened – these are necessary for Advent.

Read the full article here:
http://www.plough.com/en/articles/2012/november/the-shaking-reality-of-advent

There's a book I keep looking at on Amazon that seems to deal with overlapping themes specifically in the context of Haiti.  Perhaps you will find it interesting, too. I haven't read it yet, so I shouldn't officially recommend it, but it certainly looks worthwhile.

In the wake of a historic earthquake in the fragile country of Haiti, Kent Annan considers suffering--from the epic to the everyday--as a problem for faith. Less than two weeks after the release of Kent's book about his work with Haiti Partners, he heard the news. Friends trapped under the rubble of buildings. Friends sprinting across the city looking for family. Churches--including one Kent often attended--turned to rubble. Suddenly Kent and his friends were part of an uncomfortable fellowship: people whose faith is shaken by crisis. Taking courage from the psalmists of old and the company of his grieving neighbors, Kent has found that there is solidarity in suffering. Others have followed life to the edge of meaning and have heard God even there, calling for honest faith. Are there questions or realities your faith can't handle? Kent wrote After Shock to help you find out.
http://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/0830836179/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_10?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER