VIGIL OF THE FEAST OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY,
THE MOTHER OF GOD
AMID the din of Christmas feasting and family frolicking, these words continue to float above the noise with persistence:
This is the Year of The Unfolding…
Those Hands
First published December 25th, 2006…
THOSE hands. So tiny, so small, so harmless. They were God’s hands. Yes, we could look at God’s hands, touch them, feel them… tender, warm, gentle. They were not a clenched fist, determined to bring justice. They were hands open, willing to grab whomever would hold them. The message was this:
O Humble Visitor
THERE was so little time. A stable was all Mary and Joseph could find. What went through Mary’s mind? She knew she was giving birth to the Savior, the Messiah… but in a little barn? Embracing God’s will once more, she entered the stable and began to prepare a little manger for her Lord.
To The End
Forgiveness lets us begin again.
Humility helps us continue.
Love brings us to the end.
On Forgiving
"Peace Dove" by Christmas Spirit
AS Christmas draws near, the time for families to be together approaches. For some, it also means that the time of tension is drawing near.
Total and Absolute Trust
THESE are the days when Jesus is asking us to have total and absolute trust. It may sound like a cliché, but I hear this with all seriousness in my heart. We must totally and absolutely trust Jesus, because the days are coming when He is all we will have to lean on.
The Woman About To Give Birth
FEAST OF OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE
POPE John Paul II called her the Star of the New Evangelization. Indeed, Our Lady of Guadalupe is the Morning Star of the New Evangelization which precedes the Day of the Lord.
A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was with child and wailed aloud in pain as she labored to give birth. (Rev 12:1-2)
I hear the words,
There is coming a powerful release of the Holy Spirit.
Miracle of the Immaculate
I rose at 3:30 am on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception this past December 8th. I had to catch an early flight on my way to New Hampshire in the U.S. to give two parish missions.
Yes, another border crossing into the States. As many of you know, these crossings have been difficult for us lately and nothing short of a spiritual battle.
What Time Is it? — Part II
“The Pill”
Man cannot attain that true happiness for which he yearns with all the strength of his spirit, unless he keeps the laws which the Most High God has engraved in his very nature. —POPE PAUL VI, Humanae Vitae, Encyclical, n. 31; July 25th, 1968
IT was nearly forty years ago on July 25th, 1968, that Pope Paul VI issued the controversial encyclical Humanae Vitae. It is a document in which the Holy Father, exercising his role as chief shepherd and guardian of the faith, decreed that artificial birth control is contrary to the laws of God and nature.
What Time Is It?
DOES this Scripture have anything to do with the sense of urgency which I am hearing in letters from around the world:
Forty years I endured that generation. I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray and they do not know My ways.” So I swore in My anger, “They shall not enter into My rest.” (Psalm 95)
Contradictions?
PEOPLE have been predicting the day of Christ’s return for as long as Jesus said that He would. As a result, people get cynical—to the point where any discussion of the signs of the times is considered "fundamentalist" and fringe.
Did Jesus say we would not know when He was returning? This has to be answered carefully. Because within the answer lies another answer to the question: How I am to respond to the signs of the times?
Listen Carefully!
EARLIER this week, I thought I heard the Lord say,
Listen very carefully to the Advent readings!