Today’s readings And Mary kept all these things,reflecting on them in her heart. This is definitely the kind of reflection a mom would do. Saint Luke notes all throughout Jesus’ young life that Mary kept the events of Jesus’ life and reflected on them in her heart. At the visit of the shepherds, and again… Continue reading Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Holy Mother of God
Month: December 2019
The Sixth a Day in the Octave of Christmas
Today’s readings What did you get for Christmas? Was it everything you’d hoped for? Or are you at that stage of life where gifts are nice, but you really don’t need anything special? A lot of my family has come to that point, because we’re at that point where the gifts aren’t so important as… Continue reading The Sixth a Day in the Octave of Christmas
The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Today’s readings Today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family. We know who they are, but I wonder if we can relate? I wonder if we can wrap our minds around what this feast calls us to, namely, the holiness of all of our families, whatever those families may look like. There are all… Continue reading The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph
Holy Innocents, Martyrs
Today’s readings Right here in the middle of the joy of the Christmas Octave, we have the feast of what seems to be an incredibly horrible event. All of the male children in the vicinity of Bethlehem two years old and younger are murdered by the jealous and, quite frankly, rather pathetic Herod. But not… Continue reading Holy Innocents, Martyrs
The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Day
Today’s readings All during Advent, we have been yearning for the light. Advent reminds us that the world can sometimes be a very dark place, that war and terrorism and crime and disease and sin and death can really give us a beating, that very often we experience life much differently than God intended us to,… Continue reading The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Day
The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Night
Today’s readings We’ve all had the experience of being in a dark room, probably at night, and turning on a light. It’s blinding until we get used to it. There’s even a scene in the movie, Christmas Vacation, when Clark finally gets the Christmas lights to work and it’s so blinding that his neighbors, who have been… Continue reading The Nativity of the Lord: Mass During the Night
The Nativity of the Lord: Vigil Mass
Today’s readings Nazareth was a sleepy little town in the region of Galilee, a vast region with lots of wilderness and, like Nazareth, a few sleepy little towns. Galilee was in the nation of Israel, one of the small nations in the Roman Empire. Israel had its own king, but he was really just someone who kept… Continue reading The Nativity of the Lord: Vigil Mass
O Root of Jesse
Today’s readings In these late days of Advent, we pray the “O Antiphons.” These antiphons are the various titles of Jesus as found in Scripture. Today’s antiphon is “O Root of Jesse” and it is found as the antiphon for the Canticle of Mary in Vespers: “O Flower of Jesse’s stem, you have been raised up as… Continue reading O Root of Jesse
O Wisdom
Today’s readings That was quite a list of names, wasn’t it? It always strikes me that this list of characters, which is basically the human family tree of our Lord, is so much like any of our families’ history. Forty-two generations of the pilgrim people Israel led by people of greatness, and, well, people of… Continue reading O Wisdom
Monday of the Third Week of Advent
Today’s readings The whole progression of Advent is one that has always captured my imagination. I see Advent as a kind of dawning of a new day. Just as the day doesn’t come all at once, so Advent progresses and we see the coming of Jesus ever more gradually as we participate in each day’s… Continue reading Monday of the Third Week of Advent