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SECOND WEEK OF ADVENT, 2024, http://www.tribtimes.org
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William Zambrano MD
Dec 8, 2024, 10:36:39 AM12/8/24
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Tribulation Times
(Php 1:9-11) And this I pray: That your charity may more and more abound in knowledge and in all understanding: That you may approve the better things: that you may be sincere and without offence unto the day of Christ: Filled with the fruit of justice, through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.
YOUTUBE: FINDING IT WITH FATHER! EPISODE #9 PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS!
DENVER CATHOLIC: The Hope of Christmas
THE CATHOLIC THING: A Eucharistic Advent
CATHOLIC CULTURE: Wishing you a restless Advent
EXCERPT HOMILY: Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney
“Prepare a way for the Lord,” he cries to us in Advent. “Repent and believe the Good News – for the forgiveness of sins.” Smooth out the rough bits in your life-story through contrition, prayer, the sacraments; remove the obstacles of your vices by conversion and the cultivation of virtues in their place; make a straight path for God in your hearts. Dress up for the wedding feast of God’s kingdom, not in a tuxedo or bridal gown, but with integrity and godliness, as our first reading suggested.
How to get the gear that really matters? Paul’s prayer for us today is “that your love for each other may keep increasing, and your knowledge [of God], and your perceptiveness so that you can always recognise what is best.” That, he says, is the way to “prepare yourself for the Day of Christ”, to ready yourself and observe the Advent dress-code. Our hearts are made for loving, our minds for reasoning, our senses for perceiving: so all three are the most natural things in the world for us; yet how easy it is for our affections to go astray, our minds to be warped, our vision to be distorted. Hatred, prejudice, egotism, indifference – you name it – these things unprepare us for Christ’s coming, put up barriers, hills and ravines. But knowing, loving and serving God and His divine image in our fellows: these things ‘smooth out’ the way for Him.
When a religious makes profession of their vows or a new priest is ordained, the Provincial or Bishop uses St Paul’s words from our epistle today: “May the Lord who has begun this good work in you bring it to fulfilment”. But Paul, of course, intended this prayer for all of us. So if we try to dress ourselves in integrity and godliness, if we seek to know, love and serve God and His people, we are making a space for God – and between now and Christmas, now and the end of our lives, now and the end of time, the God, who has begun this good work in us, will bring it to completion.
A MOMENT WITH MARY: Advent, an eminently Marian time
The fact that Advent is “a time particularly suited to the veneration of the Mother of the Lord” does not mean that this liturgical season is a “month of Mary”.
In the liturgical calendars of the Christian East, the period of preparation for the mystery of the manifestation (Advent) of divine salvation (Theophany) in the mysteries of the Nativity-Epiphany of the only Son of God the Father seems to be very Marian, but the focus is on the preparation for the coming of the Lord in the mystery of divine maternity.
In the East, all mysteries relating to the Virgin Mary are Christological mysteries, that is, they refer to the mystery of our salvation in Christ.
Thus, in the Coptic rite, the praises of Mary are sung during this period in the Theotokia; in the Syrian East, this time is called Subbara, i.e. Annunciation, to emphasize its Marian character. In the Byzantine rite, the run-up to Christmas is marked by an increasing series of Marian feasts and refrains sung in honor of the Virgin Mary.
HOMILY EXCERPT: But God the Father did not need to send His Son from Heaven in order to teach mankind. He’d been doing that for centuries through the prophets of the Old Testament. God the Father could have dropped down copies of the Sermon on Mount from Heaven if He had wanted to. Teaching was not the chief reason for God the Son to be born at Bethlehem.
The chief reason is summed up in a little saying: “The wood of the crib is the wood of the cross.” Or there’s another saying that expresses the same insight: “Jesus was born in Bethlehem so that he could die on Calvary.” “So that he could die.” What God the Son, as God, could not accomplish from Heaven is to die in order to wash away both your sins, and the punishment that your sins merit. That’s why if you won’t acknowledge your sins as St. John the Baptist demands, you won’t be able to accept Jesus as the gift that God the Father sent Him to be for you.
ADVENT RESOURCES
ICBC: Advent Calendar 2024
DYNAMIC CATHOLIC: Best Advent Ever!
CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY'S ONLINE MINISTRIES: Praying Advent and Celebrating Christmas
USCCB: Advent 2024
The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility
45. The same brother asked him, 'Do you think Satan persecuted the men of old as he persecutes us?' Sisois said, 'More, for now his doom has drawn nearer, and he is weakened.'"
"Have ANY Catholic Question? Just ask Ron Smith at: hfmin...@roadrunner.com
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READ THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR: https://bibleinayearonline.com/december-oyb/?version=63&startmmdd=0101
SECOND WEEK OF ADVENT, 2024(Php 1:9-11) And this I pray: That your charity may more and more abound in knowledge and in all understanding: That you may approve the better things: that you may be sincere and without offence unto the day of Christ: Filled with the fruit of justice, through Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God.
YOUTUBE: FINDING IT WITH FATHER! EPISODE #9 PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS!
DENVER CATHOLIC: The Hope of Christmas
THE CATHOLIC THING: A Eucharistic Advent
CATHOLIC CULTURE: Wishing you a restless Advent
EXCERPT HOMILY: Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney
“Prepare a way for the Lord,” he cries to us in Advent. “Repent and believe the Good News – for the forgiveness of sins.” Smooth out the rough bits in your life-story through contrition, prayer, the sacraments; remove the obstacles of your vices by conversion and the cultivation of virtues in their place; make a straight path for God in your hearts. Dress up for the wedding feast of God’s kingdom, not in a tuxedo or bridal gown, but with integrity and godliness, as our first reading suggested.
How to get the gear that really matters? Paul’s prayer for us today is “that your love for each other may keep increasing, and your knowledge [of God], and your perceptiveness so that you can always recognise what is best.” That, he says, is the way to “prepare yourself for the Day of Christ”, to ready yourself and observe the Advent dress-code. Our hearts are made for loving, our minds for reasoning, our senses for perceiving: so all three are the most natural things in the world for us; yet how easy it is for our affections to go astray, our minds to be warped, our vision to be distorted. Hatred, prejudice, egotism, indifference – you name it – these things unprepare us for Christ’s coming, put up barriers, hills and ravines. But knowing, loving and serving God and His divine image in our fellows: these things ‘smooth out’ the way for Him.
When a religious makes profession of their vows or a new priest is ordained, the Provincial or Bishop uses St Paul’s words from our epistle today: “May the Lord who has begun this good work in you bring it to fulfilment”. But Paul, of course, intended this prayer for all of us. So if we try to dress ourselves in integrity and godliness, if we seek to know, love and serve God and His people, we are making a space for God – and between now and Christmas, now and the end of our lives, now and the end of time, the God, who has begun this good work in us, will bring it to completion.
A MOMENT WITH MARY: Advent, an eminently Marian time
The fact that Advent is “a time particularly suited to the veneration of the Mother of the Lord” does not mean that this liturgical season is a “month of Mary”.
In the liturgical calendars of the Christian East, the period of preparation for the mystery of the manifestation (Advent) of divine salvation (Theophany) in the mysteries of the Nativity-Epiphany of the only Son of God the Father seems to be very Marian, but the focus is on the preparation for the coming of the Lord in the mystery of divine maternity.
In the East, all mysteries relating to the Virgin Mary are Christological mysteries, that is, they refer to the mystery of our salvation in Christ.
Thus, in the Coptic rite, the praises of Mary are sung during this period in the Theotokia; in the Syrian East, this time is called Subbara, i.e. Annunciation, to emphasize its Marian character. In the Byzantine rite, the run-up to Christmas is marked by an increasing series of Marian feasts and refrains sung in honor of the Virgin Mary.
HOMILY EXCERPT: But God the Father did not need to send His Son from Heaven in order to teach mankind. He’d been doing that for centuries through the prophets of the Old Testament. God the Father could have dropped down copies of the Sermon on Mount from Heaven if He had wanted to. Teaching was not the chief reason for God the Son to be born at Bethlehem.
The chief reason is summed up in a little saying: “The wood of the crib is the wood of the cross.” Or there’s another saying that expresses the same insight: “Jesus was born in Bethlehem so that he could die on Calvary.” “So that he could die.” What God the Son, as God, could not accomplish from Heaven is to die in order to wash away both your sins, and the punishment that your sins merit. That’s why if you won’t acknowledge your sins as St. John the Baptist demands, you won’t be able to accept Jesus as the gift that God the Father sent Him to be for you.
ADVENT RESOURCES
ICBC: Advent Calendar 2024
DYNAMIC CATHOLIC: Best Advent Ever!
CREIGHTON UNIVERSITY'S ONLINE MINISTRIES: Praying Advent and Celebrating Christmas
USCCB: Advent 2024
The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Humility
45. The same brother asked him, 'Do you think Satan persecuted the men of old as he persecutes us?' Sisois said, 'More, for now his doom has drawn nearer, and he is weakened.'"
Prayer request? Send an email to: PrayerR...@aol.com
"Have ANY Catholic Question? Just ask Ron Smith at: hfmin...@roadrunner.com
This month's archive can be found at: http://www.catholicprophecy.info/news2.html.
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