Category: Advent

It is both terrible and comforting to dwell in the inconceivable nearness of God, and so to be loved by God, that the first and last gift is infinity and inconceivability itself. But we have no choice. God is with us.

Karl Rahner

The church asks us to understand that Christ, who came once in flesh, is prepared to come again. When we remove all obstacles to his presence he will come, at any hour and moment, to dwell spiritually in our hearts, bring with him riches of his grace.

Charles Borromeo

O Ruler of all the nations,
the only joy of every human heart,
O Keystone of the mightly arch of humankind:
Come and save the creature you fashioned from the dust.

Vespers Antiphon

To cleave to God hidden beneath the inward and outward forces which animate our being and sustain it in its development is ultimately to open ourselves to, and put trust in, all breaths of life.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Good news; but if you ask me what it is, I know not;
It is a track of feet in the snow,
It is a lantern showing a path,
It is a door set open.

G.K. Chesterton

Once two brothers went to visit an old man. It was not the old man’s habit, however, to eat every day. When he saw the brothers, he welcomed them with joy, and said: “Fasting has its own reward, but if you eat for the sake of love you satisfy two commandments, for you give up your own will and also fulfill the commandment to refesh others.”

Desert Wisdom

Our brokenness is the wound through which the full power of God can penetrate our being and transfigure us in God.

Loneliness is not something from which we must flee but the place from where we can find God. Yes through our wounds, the power of God can penetrate us and become like rivers of living water to irrigate the arid earth of others, so that love and hope are reborn.

Jean Vanier

You must be men and women of ceaseless hope, because only tomorrow can today’s human and Christian promise be realized; and every tomorrow will have its own tomorrow, world without end. Every human act, every Christian act, is an act of hope. But that means you must be men and women of the present, you must live this moment — really live it, not just endure it — because this very moment, for all its imperfection and frustration, because of its imperfection and frustration, is pregnant with all sorts of possibilities, is pregnant with the future, is pregnant with love, is pregnant with Christ.

Walter Burghardt

Rise up, O Lord, in defense of your people,
do not hide your face from our troubles.
Father of orphans, wealth of the poor,
we rejoice in making you known;
may we find comfort and security
in times of pain and anxity.

Liturgy of the Hours

Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it
again; rejoice! Your kindness should be
known to all. The Lord is near. Have no
anxiety at all.

Philippians 4:4-5