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A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Revd Dr Stephen Wigley.

Good morning. The Italian city of Milan is celebrated for many things. It’s host to various fashion houses, two football teams, the Last Supper and La Scala Opera House. It also has a magnificent Cathedral, a photo of which adorns the Advent calendar we have at home, with its windows opening up onto different works of art for each day of Advent. And as it happens, in the Church lectionary for this month, today is the feast day of St Ambrose, the 4th century Bishop of Milan. Ambrose was a scholar & theologian who insisted on the importance of Christ’s divinity at a time when there was much debate about how Jesus could be both fully human and divine. At the same time, as Bishop of Milan he was also a courageous statesman willing to rebuke even the Emperor Theodosius when he considered the Emperor to be persecuting his theological opponents too savagely following their dispute. And he was also a persuasive preacher and writer of hymns, with a gift for making the Christian faith attractive and believable to his congregations.

It was this gift which would have a profound influence on a young man called Augustine, who, inspired by Ambrose, would go on to become one of the greatest Christian theologians in a time of crisis and change across the Roman Empire. We live in a very different age to them, but at a time when the Western Church finds itself facing very similar challenges both from secular trends and from its own frailties, perhaps it is just St. Ambrose’s model of scholarly, statesmanlike and saintly leadership which we need to learn from now.

Heavenly Father,
In St. Ambrose you offer us a model of Christian faith which both serves the Church and speaks to the wider world; help us in our spiritual journey to be guided by his sage and spiritual advice, and to be led into the truth of your Kingdom.
Amen.