"It's Christmas at Ground Zero,
There's music in the air,
The sleigh bells are ringing
And the carolers are singing
While the air raid sirens blare.
It's Christmas at Ground Zero,
The button has been pressed,
The radio
Just let us know
That this is not a test.
"Everywhere the atom bombs are droppin',
It's the end of all humanity,
No more time for last minute shoppin',
It's time to face your final destiny.
"It's Christmas at Ground Zero,
There's panic in the crowd
We can dodge debris
While we trim the tree
Underneath the mushroom cloud…
"It's Christmas at Ground Zero,
Just seconds left to go
I'll duck and cover
With my Yuletide lover,
Beneath the mistletoe.
"It's Christmas at Ground Zero,
Now the missles are on their way,
What a crazy fluke,
We're gonna get nuked
On this jolly holiday!
What a crazy fluke,
We're gonna get nuked
On this jolly holiday!"
"The boys in the N.Y.P.D. choir still singing 'Glory Be,'
And the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day…"
"I wanna wish you a merry Christmas!
I wanna wish you a merry Christmas!
I wanna wish you a merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart!
I wanna wish you a merry Christmas!
I wanna wish you a merry Christmas!
I wanna wish you a merry Christmas from the bottom of my heart!…"
Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to you. Pray especially for the enemies of the Church & those most in need of your mercy.Scripture of the Day
Friends, today’s Gospel shows how Mary became the mother of all the members of the Body of Christ.Video reflection by Jem Sullivan, Ph.D. (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Advent Reflection.
From the cross, Jesus pronounced this word to St. John: “Behold, your mother.” He was giving Mary not only to John, but through John to the whole Church. Mary would be the mother of all the beloved disciples of Jesus up and down the centuries.
Then we recall that, at the Annunciation, the angel declared to the maiden of Nazareth: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.” The two persons required for the Incarnation were, in other words, the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother.
Now we can make the connection: in becoming the mother of Christ, Mary, by extension, would become mother of all of those members of Christ’s Mystical Body across space and time. Just as the Holy Spirit and the Blessed Mother were required to bring about the Incarnation in history, so those same two agents are required to bring about the birth of Christ in our souls.
Reflect: Are you in tune with the work of the Holy Spirit and of the Blessed Mother in your relationship with Christ? Reflect on their subtle yet powerful influence in the Mystical Body of Christ.
"Mary Immaculate, she who has been redeemed in a privileged manner, is the sign of the beginning of God's project to make all things new. It is she who unveils, with her singular grace, the new life introduced by God the Father into the most intimate depths of the human person."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope Saint John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 1978-2005; feast: 22 October)
"We need to know when we say yes to God exactly what is in that yes. Yes means 'I surrender'—totally, fully, without any counting the cost, without asking, 'Is it convenient?' Our yes to God is without any reservations."Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
—Saint Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"Every earthly ideal is lost by being possessed. The more material your ideal, the greater the disappointment; the more spiritual it is, the less the disillusionment."Saint Quote o' the Day
—Venerable Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
"In Mary, the new Eve, mother of the new Adam, the Father's original, wondrous plan of love was re-estabished in an even more wondrous way."
—Pope Saint John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 1978-2005; feast: 22 October)
Friends, our Gospel for today tells that wonderful story of the healing of the paralytic. People gather by the dozens to hear Jesus, crowding around the doorway of the house. They bring him a paralyzed man, and because there is no way to get him through the door, they climb up on the roof and open a space to lower him down.Video reflection by Monsignor James Vlaun (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Advent Reflection.
Can I suggest a connection between this wonderful narrative and our present evangelical situation? There are an awful lot of Catholics who are paralyzed, unable to move, frozen in regard to Christ and the Church. This might be from doubt, from fear, from anger, from old resentment, from ignorance, or from self-reproach. Some of these reasons might be good; some might be bad.
Your job, as a believer, is to bring others to Christ. How? A word of encouragement, a challenge, an explanation, a word of forgiveness, a note, a phone call. We notice the wonderful urgency of these people as they bring the sick man to Jesus. Do we feel the same urgency within his Mystical Body today?
Reflect: Think of a fellow Christian who is "paralyzed" in re- gard to Christ and the Church. This week, commit to doing some- thing to help her/him move a step closer to the Lord.
"Over the centuries shining pages have been written of heroism in suffering accepted & offered in union with Christ. Likewise we see humble service to the poor & the sick, in whose tormented flesh the presence of the poor, crucified Christ has been recognized."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope Saint John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 1978-2005; feast: 22 October)
"God dwells in us. It doesn't matter where you are as long as you are clean of heart. Clean of heart means openness, that complete freedom, that detachment that allows you to love God without hinderance, without obstacles. When sin comes into our lives that is a personal obstacle between us & God. Sin is nothing but slavery."Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
—Saint Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"It is not particularly difficult to find thousands who will spend two or three hours a day in exercising, but if you ask them to bend their knees to God in five minutes of prayer they protest that it is too long."Saint Quote o' the Day
—Venerable Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
"When you see the storm coming, if you seek safety in that firm refuge which is Mary, there will be no danger of your wavering or going down."
—Saint Josemaría Escrivá (1902-1975, feast: 26 June)
"Those who stay will be champions!" — Bo SchembechlerGo Blue!
Friends, today in our Gospel two blind men beg Jesus to heal them.Video reflection by Deacon Bernard Nojadera (U.S. Conf. of Catholic Bishops): Advent Reflection.
Blindness in the Bible is very often a symbol of spiritual blindness: the incapacity to see what truly matters. Focused on the worldly goods of wealth, pleasure, power, and honor, most people don’t see how blind they are to the truly important things: giving oneself to the grace of God and living a life of love. If you have not surrendered to the grace of God, you are blind. How wonderful it is, then, that these men in the Gospel can cry out to Jesus in their need.
They are, of course, making a petition for physical healing, but it’s much more than that for us. It’s asking for that one thing that finally matters: spiritual vision—to know what my life is about, to know the big picture, to know where I’m going. You can have all the wealth, pleasure, honor, and power you want. You can have all the worldly goods you could desire. But if you don’t see spiritually, it will do you no good; it will probably destroy you.
REFLECT: When you pray, do you truly believe, as the blind men did, that God will answer your prayer?
"The call to prayer must precede the call to action, but the call to action must truly accompany the call to prayer. In prayer we discover the needs of our brothers & sisters & make them our own, because in prayer we discover that their needs are the needs of Christ."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope Saint John Paul II the Great (1920-2005, r. 1978-2005; feast: 22 October)
"Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, & always start with the person nearest you."Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
—Saint Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"But in a conflict between truth & darkness, truth cannot lose."Saint Quote o' the Day
—Venerable Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
"Through her, as through a pure crystal, Your mercy was passed on to us. Through her, man became pleasing to God; through her, streams of grace flowed down upon us."
—Saint Maria Faustyna Kowalska, O.L.M. (1905-1938, feast: 5 October)
Friends, today’s Gospel challenges us to act on the Good News. On what precisely is the whole of your life built? Your heart or soul is the center of you, the place where you are most authentically and deeply yourself. That is your point of contact with God. There you will find the energy that undergirds and informs all the other areas of your life: physical, psychological, emotional, relational, and spiritual. As such, it is the most important and most elusive dimension of who you are.Video reflection by Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers (U.S. Conf. of Catholic Bishops): Advent Reflection.
If you are rooted in God at the level of your heart and soul, then you will be following the intentions and commands of God, and you can withstand anything. But this does not mean that if we follow God’s commands, the winds and floods will not come.
In Jesus’ parable, both builders—the one who follows the commands of God and the one who doesn’t—experience the rain and the floods that symbolize all the trials and temptations and difficulties at the surface of your life. If at the very center of your life you are linked to God, the storms and floods will come, but they will not destroy you.
Reflect: On what precisely is the whole of your life built?
"Our evangelizing zeal must spring from true holiness of life. In addition, as the Second Vatican Council suggests, preaching must in its turn make the preacher grow in holiness, which is nourished by prayer & by love for the Eucharist."Mother Teresa Quote o' the Day
—Pope Saint Paul VI (1897-1978, r. 1963-1978; feast: 29 May)
"Open your hearts to the love of God. He loves you with tenderness, & He will give you not just to give but to share. And when you are praying, ask for courage so that when you give you can give until hurts, This kind of giving is love in action."Archbishop Sheen Quote o' the Day
—Saint Teresa of Calcutta, M.C. (1910-1997, feast: 5 September)
"It is a characteristic of any decaying civilization that the great masses of the people are unconscious of the tragedy. Humanity in a crisis is generally insensitive to the gravity of the times in which it lives. Men do not want to believe their own times are wicked, partly because it involves too much self-accusation & principally because they have no standards outside of themselves by which to measure their times."Saint Quote o' the Day
—Venerable Fulton Sheen (1895-1979)
"Thou alone & Thy Mother are in all things fair; there is no flaw in Thee & no stain in Thy Mother."
—Saint Ephrem the Syrian, Doctor of the Church (306-373, feast: 9 June)
"Iowa is a witch!Go Blue! Beat Iowa!
She's a witch!
She's a witch!
She's a wi-i-itch!…"
"I can't explain what's in her brain,
Why can't she just communicate?
It's that same old story of boy meets girl,
But the girl's immortal…
"Yes, I know it, I know it hurts your hearts. You can't be with me. I understand. I get it, you live in a cave—the Cave of the Immortals!…"
"Why, oh why am I alone on a Saturday night?
No one, nobody wants to party at my house!…"
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus multiplies the loaves and the fishes. There is no better exemplification in the Scriptures of what I have called the loop of grace. God offers, as a sheer grace, the gift of being, but if we try to cling to that gift and make it our own, we lose it.Video reflection by Jem Sullivan, Ph.D. (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Advent Reflection.
The constant command of the Bible is this: what you have received as a gift, give as a gift—and you will find the original gift multiplied and enhanced. One realizes this truth when one enters willingly into the loop of grace, giving away that which one is receiving.
The hungry people who gather around Jesus in this scene are symbolic of the hungry human race, starving, from the time of Adam and Eve, for what will satisfy. We have tried to fill up the emptiness with wealth, pleasure, power, honor, the sheer love of domination—but none of it works, precisely because we have all been wired for God and God is nothing but love.
Reflect: How have you responded to the biblical imperative that what you receive as gift, you should give as gift? Where do you find yourself clinging to what you have and not wanting to give it away?
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls his first disciples. What is it about this scene that is so peaceful and right? Somehow it gets at the very heart of Jesus’ life and work, revealing what he is about. He comes into the world as the second person of the Blessed Trinity, a representative from the community that is God—and thus his basic purpose is to draw the world into community around him.Video reflection by Jem Sullivan, Ph.D. (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Advent Reflection.
Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” This tells us something about how God acts. He is direct and in-your-face; he does the choosing. “Come after me,” Jesus says. He is not offering a doctrine, a theology, or a set of beliefs. He is offering himself. It’s as if he’s saying, “Walk in my path; walk in imitation of me.”
Finally, Jesus explains, “I will make you fishers of men.” This is one of the best one-liners in Scripture. Notice the first part of the phrase: “I will make you . . .” This is counter to the culture’s prevailing view that we’re self-made, that we invent and define our own reality. Jesus puts this lie to bed. We learn from him that it’s God who acts, and if we give ourselves to his creative power, he will make us into something far better than we ever could.
Reflect: How has our culture’s focus on being self-made or self-sufficient affected your life and your trust in God’s providence? Do you let God act first or do you expect him to “make up” for what you cannot accomplish yourself?
Friends, in our Gospel today a Roman centurion comes to Jesus and says, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, suffering dreadfully… I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed.”Video reflection by Monsignor James Vlaun (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops): Advent Reflection.
Any objective observer would say, “Well, this is ridiculous! What this man is asking is impossible.” He is not only asking that his servant might be cured; he is asking that he be cured at a distance, with simply a word. He’s at the limit of what he could possibly know or control or measure. And yet he trusts; he has faith.
Søren Kierkegaard defined faith as “a passion for the impossible.” Is God opposed to reason? Absolutely not; God gave us the gift of reason. Does God want us to be unrealistic? No; he wants us to use all of our powers of imagination and analysis. But faith goes beyond reason; it is a passion for what reason can’t see.
That centurion had a passion for the impossible. And that’s why Jesus says to him, in some of the highest praise you’ll find in the Gospel: “In no one in Israel have I found such faith.”
Reflect: Have you ever, as the centurion, gone beyond reason and relied on faith? Reflect on why or why not.
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples to be vigilant. Today marks the beginning of Advent, the great liturgical season of vigilance, of waiting and watching.Video reflection by Father Greg Friedman, O.F.M. (U.S. Conf. of Catholic Bishops): Sunday Reflection.
What practically can we do during this season of vigil keeping? What are some practices that might incarnate for us the Advent spirituality?
I strongly recommend the classically Catholic discipline of Eucharistic Adoration. To spend a half hour or an hour in the presence of the Lord is not to accomplish or achieve very much—it is not really "getting" anywhere—but it is a particularly rich form of spiritual waiting.
As you keep vigil before the Blessed Sacrament, bring to Christ some problem or dilemma that you have been fretting over, and then say: "Lord, I’m waiting for you to solve this, to show me the way out, the way forward. I’ve been running, planning, worrying, but now I’m going to let you work." Then, throughout Advent, watch attentively for signs.
Also, when you pray before the Eucharist, allow your desire for the things of God to intensify; allow your heart and soul to expand. Pray, "Lord, make me ready to receive the gifts you want to give," or even, "Lord Jesus, surprise me."
Reflect: In what ways do you plan to be vigilant this Advent season?
