_Colloquy_ with the Master, Who though He is a "long time" coming, is never far from those who are trading for Him. _Resolution._ Never to leave the Master out of anything I do. _Spiritual Bouquet._ "Well done good and faithful servant!" STIR UP! "I think it meet ... to stir you up by putting you in remembrance." (2 Pet. I. 13). _1st. Prelude._ Paul writing to Timothy: "Stir up the grace of God which is in thee" (2 Tim. I. 6). _2nd. Prelude._ Grace to stir myself up this Advent. On the Sunday before Advent and nine times during the Advent Masses, the Church puts on the lips of her children this prayer: _Stir up, O Lord_. Let us try in this Meditation to catch her spirit which runs all through the Advent season and see what it is that she wants God to stir up. POINT I. HIS OWN MIGHT. We ask Him during Advent to stir up His might for four different reasons. (1) _To protect and deliver us._ "Stir up Thy might, we beseech Thee O Lord and come: that by Thy protection we may deserve to be delivered from the threatening dangers of our sins and by Thy deliverance be saved." (The "Collect" for Advent Sunday.) We ask Him to show His might by _protecting_ us from dangers and by _delivering_ us from sin. We want to spend a good Advent, we want to prepare well for His Coming, then there rise up before us the "threatening dangers of our sins"--those old temptations that are sure to come back again as soon as we begin to put forth fresh effort. Are we to be discouraged, to dread them, to say we are sure to fall again, and thus give the enemy a hold over us? No, but to believe that our God Who is coming will protect us in the day of battle, that though to humiliate and to strengthen us, He may still permit the temptations, yet He will Himself be our shield and buckler, and will deliver us if we trust in His strength and not in our own--"Stir up Thy might, O Lord, and come to protect and deliver." (2) _To free us from adversity._ "Stir up Thy power, we beseech Thee O Lord and come, that they who confide in Thy mercy may be more speedily freed from all adversity" (The "Collect" for Friday in Ember week).