Give Jesus not only your hands to serve, but your heart to love. Pray with absolute trust in God’s loving care for you. Let Him use you without consulting you. Let Jesus fill you with joy that you may preach without preaching.
—MOTHER TERESA OF CALCUTTA from Love: A Fruit Always in Season The words that the priest pronounces at consecration are greater than the very words that God spoke when he brought creation into being because those words only brought creatures into being. But when the priest speaks the words of consecration, he brings forth our Creator and our Redeemer. We should bow our heads and hearts and our bodies and souls low in profound awe and adoration.
—DR. SCOTT HAHN from The Lamb's Supper Thank you to the anonymous person who sent me this prayer card to the Sleeping St. Joseph.
It was mailed from the US without a return address not a note. God Bless you! You can understand why it is that people have trouble believing in the Eucharistic presence of our Lord. Jesus clarifies that it is only through the Spirit, it’s only through the Father calling us and giving us special grace to believe, that we sit here tonight and believe and love this truth. We need to believe it more and we need to live it better, and we need to love it truly so this truth and beauty will get out.
—DR. SCOTT HAHN from The Lamb's Supper Only in the present can you act. Only in the present can you choose to open the prison gates of past and future. Only in the present can you change your future, and even the meaning of your past, as the Good Thief did. Only in the present can you meet God. Only in the present can you be holy.
—PETER KREEFT from How to Be Holy Bethlehem is emphatically a place where extremes meet. Here begins, it is needless to say, another mighty influence for the humanization of Christendom. If the world wanted what is called a non-controversial aspect of Christianity, it would probably select Christmas. Yet it is obviously bound up with what is supposed to be a controversial aspect (I could never at any stage of my opinions imagine why); the respect paid to the Blessed Virgin. When I was a boy, a more Puritan generation objected to a statue upon my parish church representing the Virgin and Child. After much controversy, they compromised by taking away the Child. One would think that this was even more corrupted with Mariolatry, unless the mother was counted less dangerous when deprived of a sort of weapon. But the practical difficulty is also a parable. “You cannot chip away the statue of a mother from all round that of a newborn child. You cannot suspend the new-born child in mid-air; indeed, you cannot really have a statue of a newborn child at all. Similarly, you cannot suspend the idea of a newborn child in the void or think of him without thinking of his mother. You cannot visit the child without visiting the mother; you cannot in common human life approach the child except through the mother. If we are to think of Christ in this aspect at all, the other idea follows it as it is followed in history. We must either leave Christ out of Christmas, or Christmas out of Christ, or we must admit, if only as we admit it in an old picture, that those holy heads are too near together for the haloes not to mingle and cross.
—G. K. CHESTERTON from The Everlasting Man Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether be likes it or not, an association in his mind between two ideas that most of mankind must regard as remote from each other; the idea of a baby and the idea of unknown strength that sustains the stars. His instincts and imagination can still connect them, when his reason can no longer see the need of the connection; for him there will always be some savor of religion about the mere picture of a mother and a baby; some hint of mercy and softening about the mere mention of the dreadful name of God.
—G. K. CHESTERTON How often I have wanted to be apart with you, Jesus, on the mountain, but just as Peter, John and James had to come back down the mountain for the work that was ahead of them, so I too must depart from my place of peace and prayer to serve the souls you have placed in my care…. Love calls me down.
—SHERRY BOAS from A Mother's Bouquet All too often I forget that your Kingdom belongs to the children and those who become like them. Give me a deep awe and respect for the precious ones you have entrusted to me. Help me understand what a supreme honor it is to see the world through their simple eyes, especially the things of the Spirit.
—SHERRY BOAS The liturgy of Advent sets before us the figure of John the Baptist, both as an example of many virtues to imitate and as the one chosen by God to prepare for the coming of the Messiah. With him, the Old Testament closes, and we are on the threshold of the New.
—TERRY BARBER from The Coming of Christ It's easy to think your faith is alive and well, that you're burning hot with faith christian when you're surrounded by lukewarm, cold, comatose Christianity as the acceptable norm in our consumer society.
We can see that when we receive the Word like she did, when we share it like she did, it will be fruitful for us like it was for her. We can bear Christ to the world that He came to save, of which we are a part.
—DR. SCOTT HAHN When you give in to forbidden fruits, they are sweet at first, then bitter- you end up stuck in a real jam...
When you give in to the fruits of the Spirit, sacrifice is bitter at first then, you end up, with time, with the sweetest tasting wine... Watch out!
Correction for the bulletin! Mass and confessions 7 PM THURSDAY DECEMBER 13th Bilingual Celebration Thank you! |
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