Waiting with Our Lady for the coming of Our Saviour, we will meditate each day of Advent on a different aspect of the circumstances of His birth, the moment of The Incarnation amongst us. Reflection: MANGER Make one corner of your heart as manger of Jesus. To do this, go without something today that you [...]
Waiting with Our Lady for the coming of Our Saviour, we will meditate each day of Advent on a different aspect of the circumstances of His birth, the moment of The Incarnation amongst us. Reflection: CREVICES You must block every crevice in the walls of the stable, so that the wind and cold don’t enter [...]
Waiting with Our Lady for the coming of Our Saviour, we will meditate each day of Advent on a different aspect of the circumstances of His birth, the moment of The Incarnation amongst us. Reflection: THE ROOF The roof of the stable needs to be in good condition, so that the Holy Family is protected [...]
Waiting with Our Lady for the coming of Our Saviour, we will meditate each day of Advent on a different aspect of the circumstances of His birth, the moment of The Incarnation amongst us. Reflection: THE STABLE The stable is your heart. Ask Jesus to make His home in your heart as He will soon [...]
Follow me, Christ says; and wherever the Master goes, there must the disciple follow. Mark 16:15-20 gives us the last scene in the gospel of St Mark, setting out Jesus’ final command to the apostles to preach the gospel, and promising that their work would be accompanied by miracles and signs. Then the Lord is [...]
Waiting with Our Lady for the coming of Our Saviour, we will meditate each day of Advent on a different aspect of the circumstances of His birth, the moment of The Incarnation amongst us. Reflection: THE WELCOMING INNKEEPER Let the compassion and generosity of the Innkeeper be your example by finding an opportunity to offer [...]
Waiting with Our Lady for the coming of Our Saviour, we will meditate each day of Advent on a different aspect of the circumstances of His birth, the moment of The Incarnation amongst us. Reflection: ARRIVAL AT BETHLEHEM GATE On arriving at the gate of the city, share Mary’s joy at reaching her destination. Pray [...]
John 16:20-23 20 ‘In all truth I tell you, you will be weeping and wailing while the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. 21 A woman in childbirth suffers, because her time has come; but when she has given birth to the child she forgets the suffering [...]
To be poor in spirit is to acknowledge our creatureliness and our radical dependency on God, who loves us and wants our happiness. The Beatitudes all have a similar structure—but upon close review one of them is quite different! Most Beatitudes promise a future blessing to reward a present suffering, except for the first Beatitude in both Matthew’s (Matt 5:3-12) and [...]
In the drama of the two brothers and the loving Father the heart of the Gospel is laid open before us. Human freedom and divine love are here. Human sinfulness in two of its more dramatic forms—dissipation and contemptuous pride—are on view. We are warned about the reality of sin and brought face to face [...]
Walking down a busy city street, it can be easy to let strangers pass around you without giving them a second thought. Everyone is going about their business, caught up in their daily tasks. But have you ever walked past someone who, for whatever reason, catches your attention? Who are they? Where are they going? [...]
With eyes wide open to the degradation we see all around us, we know that things are rotten in the modern world. Who can deny it? And yet there are more Christians in the world today than there have ever been in the past. The Church is not dead. Christendom has had a series of [...]
Too often we Christians have given in to the temptation to sanitize the crucifixion and sentimentalize the resurrection. But the resurrection was not, at first, a cause for rejoicing, but the source of fear—soul-shaking, knee-knocking, heart-pounding, earth-quaking fear. One of the good things about Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is the gore. He [...]
In a true search for Christ, we cannot but find ourselves with Mary at our side. To be with her is to be at Nazareth as every hope is made true at the angel’s message, to be in Bethlehem as the Lord is manifested to the world, to be at Cana as his miracles pour [...]