Third Sunday of Advent (December 13th, 2015)

December 13, 2015 by Be Holy

The season of Advent is unobserved and forgotten outside the Church. Christmas has become for many merely a pleasant diversion, a fantasia on wintry themes.

Source: Third Sunday of Advent (December 13th, 2015)

The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

December 8, 2015 by Be Holy

December 8
The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Beginning of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy

Solemnity
“The Holy Door will become a Door of Mercy through which anyone who enters will experience the love of God who consoles, pardons, and instills hope.” – Pope Francis, Misericordiae Vultus, 2.
Today marks the start of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy.
This Year of Mercy begins with the opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, by Pope Francis, on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It concludes on 20 November 2016.
On the Third Sunday of Advent, Doors of Mercy will open in local churches around the world. This signifies the “Church’s universal communion” and the year as an “extraordinary moment of grace and spiritual renewal.” We are called to celebrate mercy and to joyously participate in this great jubilee.
As we begin this special journey together may we remember Mary, Mother of Mercy. As Pope Francis said, “May the sweetness of her countenance watch over us in this Holy Year, so that all of us may rediscover the joy of God’s tenderness.” [1][2]

Keep Praying

December 5, 2015 by Be Holy

Here I am,
Your poor one,
Your lowly one,
Your empty one,
Kneeling in adoration..

You spread out Space and Time,
Knowing You would call me forth.
And then You did.

You called to me,
Forming me from the Earth,
You Who played among the Pleides,
Stooped to play with me.

You kissed me,
With the Breath of Your Mouth,
You filled me,
Shaping me,
Empowering me,
Placing in me a formless hope.

Hope grew with the babe,
And sought with fingers of my senses.
Peeling back the covering of Mystery,
Revealing treasures hidden in the earth,
And dancing in the heavens,

Witnessed with wonder in the Night,
The Universe invited me to You,
To join You in the dance,
For which all Time and Space,
All days and all nights,
All mystery had poured forth,
With Your Cry for Light.

Your Heartbeat created the rhythms of the constellations,
The ebb and flow of cosmic seas.
Your Heart beat for Your dream of Man,
Your dream of me.

You, given as gift,
Hidden from blind eyes,
Hidden among the stars,
Spreading across Your Time,
Filling all Your Majestic Space,
Slowly whispering Your secrets,
And revealing truths,
Revealed Ultimate Truth.
You in Your Way spoke to me.

There was more than matter wrapped in my being.
Secreted without shape,
Without form,
Without stuff,
With only the power to will,
And, thereby, to Love,
To know,
And, thereby, to seek and search,
That, in living, I might come to discover You,
With me, beside me and all around me,
Waiting for me to love You.

You, Who always knew me,
And loved me,
In my ignorance,
In my blindness
And in my very being,
Even while Sin entered in to obscure Your work,
And the wonder of me,
Graced me with a soul.

I didn’t know You.
I couldn’t see You.
I didn’t know to seek after You.
Until I saw You hanging there,
Crossing the abyss,
Above the world,
Suspended and told throughout Time,

Now, at long last, I pray,
And gasp for You, my Breath.
You are the shape of me,
Saved for an eternity
Beyond gaseous matter,
And starry night,
A Day created by the One Uncreated,
And lived in the Wedding
Of Love, of soul and Spirit-being.
For this I will,
With my indomitable will,
Keep praying.