Every year, and seemingly earlier every year, Christians are faced with a dilemma. What are we to do when we know it's Advent, but the world around us is determined that it's already Christmas? To partake the mulled wine and mince pies proffered by friends and colleagues or not? To join in with the carols in the shopping mall or pass by in pursed lip silence?

I cannot begin a talk on the theme of mercy without quoting Portia's speech on the subject from the Merchant of Venice: 'The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes: 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown: His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings; But mercy is above this sceptred sway; It is enthronéd in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself; And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. ' (Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene I)

I'm particularly honoured to be preaching here so close to the beginning of the academic year and to be reflecting with you on texts that seem almost as though they could have been written especially for us tonight. Our first reading climaxes in an exhortation to search for understanding, and extols wisdom in glowing terms - and the pursuit of wisdom and understanding is surely one fairly non-controversial way of describing what a community such as a Cambridge college is for.

Just wanted to let you know that one of our sisters will be teaching a 10-week course on Aquinas and the Trinity to run Friday evenings 7:30-9 pm, from 6 October - 15 December (with half-term break in November). It will be held both in-person (Cambridge) and online via Zoom. The requested donation for the Dominican Sisters is £50 for the entire course. For more information or to register, go to the Thomistic Studies website: https://www.thomisticstudies.org You can register online or by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Please also pass this on!

Blessed— or happy - are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness — or for justice; for they shall have their fill. We will come back to the choice different translators of the scriptures make here between justice and righteousness, but, before we go there, the question of whether happy, or blessed, is the best translation of St Matthew's Greek is of course also a vexed one, and perhaps especially in connection with this beatitude.