Advent Meditation

“Purify our conscience.” Now there is a threatening suggestion. While we will never have a perfectly clean and purified conscience, we can take a peek at it now and then. Let’s leave out any “sex between consenting adults in private that does not hurt or harm”and masturbation. But there is plenty of conscience left to examine. My mind leaps to the stuff I have not done – helping to stamp out illegal drug trafficking, assisting the fight to make our country safe for immigrants, legal or illegal, or fighting to end bashing of American Muslims and peaceful Muslims throughout the world.

We must not forget to glance at and confess words and deeds that hurt others, gossip that hurts and not paying our fair share of taxes. Oh well, the list gets so familiar as to be boring. But you get what I mean. Admitting our faults, sins and peccadilloes and receiving God’s forgiveness makes us more human if not pure. (Meditation on the collect for the Fourth Sunday in Advent by RWC