A Consolation

Live your Catholic faith

Your Catholic faith is a public thing. It is not meant to be left behind when you leave home (ccc2472). But be forwarned: Being a public Catholic involves risk and loss. You will find some doors closed to you. You will lose some friends. You will be considered an outsider. But, as a consolation, remember our Lord's words to the persecuted: "Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven" (Matt. 5:12).

SING FOR JOY (video)

covenant relationship

Intercessors Of The Lamb:

"In Isaiah 42:67, God said, “I have formed you.” God has formed us and He is continuing to form us. “I have formed you as a covenant.” You become the covenant now, “to open the eyes of the blind, to bring the prisoners out from confinement”, out from the dungeons or from wherever they are living in darkness. This is New Covenant ministry at its best. In John 17, Jesus said, “I have given you the glory that the Father has given to Me. I have prayed, ‘Father, that they may be one, as we are one.’” That’s covenant. “You, Father, in me and I in you and I in them,” one totally in this Trinitarian love. Jesus has called us into this relationship, to be totally, literally, in love, dwelling in the full presence of love in this New Covenant relationship. All this I, too, say to you today that His joy may truly, truly be in you, so that your joy will always be complete.

Excerpt from Mother Nadine’s “New Covenant,” Come Higher Friends conference, Omaha, NE, 2004."

Universalis: Office of Readings

Universalis: Office of Readings:

"The just will rejoice and hope in the Lord:
the upright in heart will give him glory."

USCCB - (NAB) - December 27, 2007

USCCB - (NAB) - December 27, 2007:

"We are writing this so that our joy may be complete."

Prayer for Today: Show us Lord how we need nothing but You in order to have complete joy. If we focus on the world around us, there is so little to be happy about...but if we keep our focus on You, we can't help but to rejoice! Bless us with joy today!

Prayer Request

Could you please keep my dad in your prayers. He was hospitalized on Christmas Eve with congestive heart failure due to a hardened heart valve. He has a lot of fluids and it is making it very uncomfortable for him to sleep...he can't lie back and has been sleepin up in a chair for a while now. I'm praying for some comfort and peace for him.

Also Roy's cousin(in law)Joe who was diagnosed with stomach cancer over the Summer and has been receiving chemo treatment will have his cat scan on Friday to determine where things stand. Our God is able! Let us pray for the Lord to pour down His grace on Joe and his family and for that tumor to completly disappear.

Thank you!

"Mary's Boy Child/ Oh My Lord" (video)

joy

Medjugorje Graces: ANNUAL APPARITION TO JAKOV ON DECEMBER 25TH 2007: "'Dear children! Today, in a special way I call you to become open to God and for each of your hearts today to become a place of Jesus’ birth. Little children, through all this time that God permits me to be with you, I desire to lead you to the joy of your life. Little children, the only true joy of your life is God. Therefore, dear children, do not seek joy in things of this earth but open your hearts and accept God. Little children, everything passes, only God remains in your heart. Thank you for having responded to my call.'"

Sing a New Song(a fun video)

Universalis: Morning Prayer (Lauds)

Universalis: Morning Prayer (Lauds):
"Psalm 149
The saints rejoice

Sing a new song to the Lord, his praise in the assembly of the faithful.
Let Israel rejoice in its maker, and the sons of Sion delight in their king.
Let them praise his name with dancing, sing to him with timbrel and lyre,
for the Lord’s favour is upon his people, and he will honour the humble with victory."

USCCB - (NAB) - December 26, 2007

USCCB - (NAB) - December 26, 2007:

"When they hand you over,
do not worry about how you are to speak
or what you are to say.
You will be given at that moment what you are to say.
For it will not be you who speak
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you."

Prayer for Today: Lord, may we be more open to having You speak through us.

USCCB - (NAB) - December 25, 2007

USCCB - (NAB) - December 25, 2007:

"And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth."

Merry Christmas!

YouTube - Let there be Peace on Earth (Vince Gill)

Pope On the Birth of Christ (cont.)

ZENIT - On the Birth of Christ

Dear friends, in these days of preparation leading up to Christmas the prayer of the Church intensifies, so that the hopes for peace, salvation, justice, and all that the world urgently needs, be made a reality. We ask God that violence be defeated by the power of love, that opposition be replaced by reconciliation, that the desire to dominate be transformed into desires for forgiveness, justice and peace.

May the wishes of kindness and love that we exchange in these days reach all sectors of our daily lives. May peace be in our hearts, so that we can be open to the action of God's mercy. May peace live in all families and may they spend Christmas united before the crib and the tree decorated with lights. May the Christmas message of solidarity and welcome contribute to create a deeper sensibility toward old and new types of poverty, and toward the common good that we are all called to share.

May all family members, especially the children and the elderly -- the weakest ones -- feel the warmth of this feast, and may that warmth spread out through every day of the year. May Christmas be a celebration of peace and joy: joy for the birth of the Savior, Prince of peace. Like the shepherds, we hasten our steps toward Bethlehem. In the heart of the Holy Night we will be able to contemplate the "infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger," together with Mary and Joseph (Luke 2:12,16).

We ask the Lord to open our soul, so that we can enter the mystery of his birth. May Mary, who gave her virginal womb to the Word of God, who contemplated the child between her arms, and who offers him to everyone as the Redeemer of the world, help us make next Christmas a moment of growth in the knowledge and love of Christ. This is the wish that I warmly extend to you all, to your families and your dear ones.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Universalis: Office of Readings

Universalis: Office of Readings:

"For this reason, when our Lord was born of the Virgin, the message of the angelic voices was: Glory to God in the highest, and peace to men of good will.

For how could there be peace on earth unless Truth has arisen from the earth, that is, unless Christ were born of our flesh? And he is our peace who made the two into one: that we might be men of good will, sweetly linked by the bond of unity.

Let us then rejoice in this grace, so that our glorying may bear witness to our good conscience by which we glory, not in ourselves, but in the Lord. That is why Scripture says: He is my glory, the one who lifts up my head. For what greater grace could God have made to dawn on us than to make his only Son become the son of man, so that a son of man might in his turn become son of God?

Ask if this were merited; ask for its reason, for its justification, and see whether you will find any other answer but sheer grace."

---from A sermon of St Augustine

USCCB - (NAB) - December 24, 2007

USCCB - (NAB) - December 24, 2007:

"In the tender compassion of our God
the dawn from on high shall break upon us,
to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death,
and to guide our feet into the way of peace.”"

Today's Prayer: May peace dwell within each one of us, within our families and friends, within our parishes...within our world.

Let your glory fall (video)

Pope On the Birth of Christ

ZENIT - On the Birth of Christ:

"It is therefore very important that we are true believers, and as believers, that we reaffirm forcefully, with our lives, the mystery of salvation that comes with the celebration of Christ's birth! In Bethlehem, the Light which illumines our life was made manifest to the world; the Way which leads to the fullness of our humanity was revealed to us. What sense does it make to celebrate Christmas if we don't acknowledge that God has become man? The celebration becomes empty.
Before all else, we Christians have to reassert with deep and heartfelt conviction the truth of Christ's birth in order to bear witness before all the awareness of an unparalleled gift that enriches not only us, but everyone.

---taken from reflection on Christmas that Benedict XVI delivered on December 19th at the general audience "

Jesus is Key!

Intercessors Of The Lamb
"In Acts 4:12 we read, “There is no salvation, for there is no other name in the whole world given to men by which we are saved, except by the name of Jesus.” In other words, there is no salvation, there is no covenant love, except in Jesus. Jesus is the key. He is not an option. He is absolutely essential. He was trying to say that in the Martha and Mary Scripture. “She has chosen the better part.” This is the one thing necessary – this union, this covenant love, this God coming to His people, is a major theme in the Old Testament, but it definitely, totally takes over the New. In Luke 1 the whole theme is all about God coming to His people in that beautiful Benedictus, particularly verse 72 which says through the mouth of Isaiah, “God is showing mercy to our fathers because He’s remembering His holy covenant.” He is getting ready, now, to establish the New Covenant. Of course John was chosen to prepare the way. In God’s mercy He is doing it again with His very self, His own Son."

Universalis: Office of Readings

Universalis: Office of Readings:

"Who will climb the mountain of the Lord? Who will stand in his holy place?
The one who is innocent of wrongdoing and pure of heart,
who has not given himself to vanities or sworn falsely.
He will receive the blessing of the Lord and be justified by God his saviour.
This is the way of those who seek him, seek the face of the God of Jacob."

Praise You Father, for sending us Your Son so that we all may climb to Your holy dwelling...left on our own, none of us would make it.