"'Frost and fire': commemorating Nicholas Ferrar in Advent"

From catholicity and covenant today:

... pentecostal fire
In the dark time of year.

Eliot's words from Little Gidding speak to us as we commemorate Nicholas Ferrar at the beginning of Advent.  In the northern hemisphere it is a time of frost and darkness, but Advent lights burn.  Such was Ferrar and the community of Little Gidding.  In a cold time - a time of bitter conflict and of deep fear - the prayerful rhythms of Little Gidding spoke of the Kingdom.

For all of the gentleness and civility of Little Gidding, its life - those prayerful rhythms - profoundly challenged the polities of this world.  In his sermon during this year's Little Gidding pilgrimage, Bishop of Ely Stephen Conway, pointed to this challenge: 

It was not some romantic aesthetic withdrawal from the world but a bold and sober dedication to what the world really needs which is metanoia, being purged and transformed by the fire of love.

Little Gidding is indeed "tongued with fire", an example in a cold time of how Anglican communities can be signs of the Advent hope.

(The photograph is of Little Gidding Church and the Ferrar House in winter.)

I went to church on Advent I - I had a real longing to be there - to a parish I used to go to for Morning and Evening Prayer (one of the few around here that offer at least one of these every day).  And the priests - and some parishioners - remembered me, and greeted me kindly and warmly; I had forgotten that could happen.

It's a more-or-less Anglo-Catholic parish.  A real one, that is - no ostentation about it, but a place where the real faith is preached - and that is the central purpose.  No incense - but a small crucifix on the wall, and the unaltered words from the BCP during the rite.  I had forgotten that was possible, too.  Maybe there's a place for me, after all;  a Little Gidding in the middle of all the "bitter conflict."  I certainly could use the spiritual help....