It’s the Third Sunday of Advent. It’s pink candle day. Apparently pink vestments is also an option, but we don’t see them here.

Here means St. Matt’s, by the way. It’s good to be home.

The entrance hymn is When the King Shall Come Again; the tune is Gaudeamus Pariter by Johann Horn 1495-1547. Gaudeamus is some other form of gaudete, seems like. Maybe “our rejoicing” whereas gaudete is “your (familiar) rejoicing.” Dawn would know better than I would. And in any case it’s hard to sing. Not an easy one like the recessional hymn turns out to be, People, Look East.

More readings about stuff that’s gonna happen. From Isaiah, “The desert and the parched land will exult; the steppe will rejoice and bloom.” The response for the psalm, “Lord, come and save us.”

The epistle from St. James is especially awesome:

Be patient, brothers and sisters,
until the coming of the Lord.
See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth,
being patient with it
until it receives the early and the late rains.
You too must be patient.
Make your hearts firm,
because the coming of the Lord is at hand.

I just think the image of the patient farmer waiting for the precious fruit is lovely. But then it hits particularly hard to me when I think of my semi-meltdown on the plane earlier in the week over stupid old headphones. Although perhaps meltdown is a bit strong. Even in the midst of it, I knew that I would suffer waves of shame if I got too angry. That I always become ashamed after being angry. So thinking about that at the time helped me in fact from going really too far. And it’s not like I yelled or anything. But I sure did do a long slow burn.

But, instead, I need to make my heart firm. The coming of the Lord is at hand. Pay attention, dummy, St. James says to me. Pay attention to the important things.