Time for Torah

Today I signed up for some email classes from the folks at Torah.org. As we are in the first week of Advent and the readings from Office of Readings are rich in the Hebrew scriptures, then why not make a special study of them with Rabbis? I will write more about it as the classes unfold.

Quote from today's Office of Readings (OR)

That day, man will look to his creator and his eyes will turn to the Holy One of Israel. He will no longer look after the altars, his own handiwork, nor gaze at what his hands have made: the sacred poles and the solar pillars.

This text is a call to conversion as much as promise. It is easy to turn our cause or world view into a sacred pole, or erect a solar pillar. All the thoughts we develop and world views we experience, are nothing when we turn our eyes to "the Holy One of Israel." Turning eyes must be understood then as repentance. Conversion.

Advent is a time of conversion when you begin to see that the season as expressed in the liturgy is aching for this birth to occur. Come, O come. Then, on the 17th will begin the O Antiphons. Each day from then until Christmas there is a specific antiphon for the Magnificat at Vespers. The liturgy of the Church Year is magnificent. I wonder if other people find it that way, too?