Joy

Third Week of

Beautiful Advent

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Monday's Healing Moment

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How often I have thought that joy, happiness, even peace could be manufactured through my will and efforts. It was simply having an occasion to make it happen, lots of planning, controlling and great expectations would make it possible for ‘me’ to orchestrate the joy and hope of Christmas. Instead, I have been disappointed, even exhausted from ‘my’ efforts which often fall short or fail. The serenity and hope of the season is God’s gift, the spiritual gift is received through surrender. The growth needed is planted in the dark, cold, hard dirt of life. Tiny, tough seeds shoved into the earth and swallowed up, waiting in fallow ground, trusting the season until new growth springs from nothingness.

Now the third week of Advent and we draw closer to the birth of the Christ child, still waiting as the days grow colder, shorter, and more stressful. In today’s reading in Luke the angel Gabriel is sent to a Virgin to deliver troubling news to a fearful young girl. Mary questions how she can have a child growing within her, “How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?” The angel tells her that, not only Mary, but her relative Elizabeth who has been barren, also expects a child. Before departing the angel succinctly answers, “For nothing will be impossible for God.”

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~ debra.

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Readings

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Numbers 24:2-7, 15-17 • Psalms 25:4-5, 6-7, 8-9 • Matthew 21:23-27.

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#canigetanamen #advent #lovebeingcatholic

Pray

Second Week of

Beautiful Advent

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Saturday's Healing Moment

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Pray with great confidence, with confidence based upon the goodness and infinite generosity of God and upon the promises of Jesus Christ. God is a spring of living water which flows unceasingly into the hearts of those who pray.

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~ St. Louis de Montfort.

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Readings

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Sirach 48:1-4, 9-11 • Psalms 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19 • Matthew 17:10-13.

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#canigetanamen #advent #StLouisdeMontfort #lovebeingcatholic #SaintLouisdeMontfort

Hope

Second Week of

Beautiful Advent

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Thursday’s Healing Moment

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In our time, what is lacking is not so much the courage to ask this question as the courage to expect an answer. . .

‭‭We may at times be able to show the world Christ in moments when all can clearly discern in history, some confirmation of the Christian message. But the fact remains that our task is to seek and find Christ in our world as it is, and not as it might be.

‭‭The fact that the world is other than it might be does not alter the truth that Christ is present in it and that His plan has been neither frustrated nor changed: indeed, all will be done according to His will. Our Advent is a celebration of this hope.

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~ Thomas Merton

American Author, Monk and Mystic.

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Readings

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Isaiah 41:13-20 • Psalms 145:1, 9, 10-11, 12-13 • Matthew 11:11-15.

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#canigetanamen #thomasmerton ##thomasmertonquote #advent2021 #advent #catholicadvent2021 #thomasmerton🙏❤️

Yes

Second Week of

Beautiful Advent

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Friday's Healing Moment

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To have Christian hope means to know about evil and yet to go to meet the future with confidence. The core of faith rests upon accepting being loved by God, and therefore to believe is to say Yes, not only to him, but to creation, to creatures, above all, to men, to try to see the image of God in each person and thereby to become a lover. That’s not easy, but the basic Yes, the conviction that God has created men, that he stands behind them, that they aren’t simply negative, gives love a reference point that enables it to ground hope on the basis of faith.

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~ Cardinal Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth.

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Readings

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Isaiah 48:17-19 • Psalms 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6 • Matthew 11:16-19 • Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12.

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#canigetanamen #advent #CardinalRatzinger #catholiclove

Feast Day Mother Mary Moment

Second Week

of Beautiful Advent

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Wednesday’s Feast Healing Moment

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Prayer of the Immaculate Conception

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O God, who by the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, didst prepare a worthy dwelling place for thy Son, we beseech thee that, as by the foreseen death of this, thy Son, thou didst preserve her from all stain, so too thou wouldst permit us, purified through her intercession, to come unto thee. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son, who livest and reignest with thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end.

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Amen.

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Readings

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Genesis 3:9-15, 20 • Psalms 98:1, 2-3, 3-4 • Luke 1:26-38 • Ephesians 1:3-6, 11-12.

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#canigetanamen #advent #feastday #catholic #ImmaculateConception #blessedtobecatholic #advent #catholic #catholicadvent #adventprayer #catholicprayer #catholicprayersafeplace #catholicadvent2021 #catholicsafeplace #advent2021🎄😍

Tuesday's Healing Prayer

Second Week of Beautiful Advent

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ADVENT

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Charm with you stainlessness these winter nights,

Skies, and be perfect! Fly vivider in the fiery dark, you quiet meteors,

And disappear.

You moon, be slow to go down,

This is your full!

The four white roads make off in silence

Toward the four parts of the starry universe.

Time falls like manna at the corners of the wintry earth.

We have become more humble than the rocks.

More wakeful than the patient hills.

Charm with your stainlessness these nights in Advent,

holy spheres,

While minds, as meek as beasts,

Stay close at home in the sweet hay;

And intellects are quieter than the flocks that feed by starlight.

Oh pour your darkness and your brightness over all our

solemn valleys,

You skies; and travel like the gentle Virgin,

Toward the planets' stately setting.

Oh white full moon as quiet as Bethlehem!.

Amen.

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~ Thomas Merton.

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Readings

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Isaiah 40:1-1 • Psalms 96:1-2, 3, 10, 11-12, 13 • Matthew 18:12-14.

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#canigetanamen #advent #ThomasMerton #catholic #blessedtobecatholic

Mother Mary Monday's

Second Week of

Beautiful Advent

Healing Mary Mother Moment

Mother of Compassion Prayer

O Holy Virgin, in the midst of all your glory, we ask you not to forget the sorrows of this world.

Cast a look of pity upon all who struggle against life's difficulties, and who cease not to feel all its bitterness.

Have pity on all who have been separated from those they love.

Have pity on the lonely and friendless.

Pardon the weakness of our faith.
Have pity on those whom we love.

O Holy Mother, show a mother's compassion toward the sorrowful and those who tremble under life's afflictions.

Give them hope and peace.

Amen

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Readings

Isaiah 35:1-10 • Psalms 85:9-10, 11-12, 13-14 • Luke 5:17-26.

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#canigetanamen #advent #catholic #catholicadvent #adventprayer #catholicprayer #catholicprayersafeplace #catholicadvent2021 #advent2021🎄

Healing Advent Prayer

Second Week of

Beautiful Advent

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Sunday's Advent Healing Prayer

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Hail, O Lady, John the Baptist

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No heaven-high dream, remote,

unearthly, dread,

The glory I declare: turn, turn, and see

Adventurous love, that leaps from

out the world

Served by sweet growth.

In every twig and blade

I know the advent of my Saviour-God;

His moving thought is music in the wind,

The shining sword of his ascending life

Pricks the parched earth In the unmeasured sky,

In the uncounted planets of the sand

Whose paces tell the rhythm of His joy,

In the bird's sudden note, I savour him;

And closer still he comes--

Comes, with his subtle touch to stir the mind,

And catch the heart to rapture.

Amen.

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~ Evelyn Underhill.

Readings

Baruch 5:1-9 • Psalms 126:1-2, 2-3, 4-5, 6 • Luke 3:1-6 • Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11

#canigetanamen #EvelynUnderhill ‭‭#catholicadvent #advent2021 #catholicadventprayer #evelynunderhillsprayerbook #adventcandle #purpleadventcandle

Advent calls us to

First Week of

Beautiful Advent

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Saturday’s Healing Moment

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During Advent, Pope Francis concluded, “we are called to enlarge the horizons of our hearts, to be surprised by the life that is presented each day with its newness. In order to do this we need to learn to not depend on our own securities, our own established plans, because the Lord comes in the hour which we don’t imagine.”

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~ Vatican Radio: 27/11/2016 Pope Francis: Advent calls us to enlarge our horizons.

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Readings

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Isaiah 30:19-21, 23-26 • Psalms 147:1-2, 3-4, 5-6 • Matthew 9:35-10:1, 6-8.

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#canigetanamen #advent #PopeFrancis #advent2021 #popefrancisofassisi #blessedtobecatholic #catholicadvent2021 🎄

monk’s healing advice

First Week of

Beautiful Advent

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Friday's Healing Moment

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To be grateful is to recognize the Love of God in everything He has given us – and He has given us everything. Every breath we draw is a gift of His love, every moment of existence is a grace, for it brings with it immense graces from Him. Gratitude therefore takes nothing for granted, is never unresponsive, is constantly awakening to new wonder and to praise of the goodness of God. For the grateful person knows that God is good, not by hearsay but by experience. And that is what makes all the difference.

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~ Thomas Merton

American Author, Monk and Mystic

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Readings

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Isaiah 29:17-24 • Psalms 27:1, 4, 13-14 • Matthew 9:27-31.

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#canigetanamen #thomasmerton ##thomasmertonquote #advent2021 #advent #catholicadvent2021 #thomasmerton🙏❤️

Mother Mary Moment

First Week of
Beautiful Advent

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Thursday's Advent Healing Prayer

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Salutation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

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Hail, O Lady,

Holy Queen,

Mary, holy Mother of God,

Who are the Virgin made Church,

chosen by the most Holy Father in heaven

whom he consecrated with His most holy beloved Son

and with the Holy Spirit the Paraclete,

in whom there was and is

all fullness of grace and every good.

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Hail His Palace!

Hail His Tabernacle!

Hail His Dwelling!

Hail His Robe!

Hail His Servant!

Hail His Mother!

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And hail all You holy virtues

which are poured into the hearts of the faithful

through the grace and enlightenment of the Holy Spirit,

that from being unbelievers,

You may make them faithful to God.

Amen.

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~ St. Francis of Assisi.

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Readings

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Isaiah 26:1-6 • Psalms 118:1 and 8-9, 19-21, 25-27a • Matthew 7:21, 24-27.

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#canigetanamen #advent #stfrancisofassisi #catholic #saintfrancisofassisi

Seeing baby Jesus

First Week of

Beautiful Advent

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Wednesday's Healing Moment

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Saint Mother Teresa became a saint because she was able to see Christ in the most difficult, even impossible places, even the "distressing disguise of the poor.” Slowly, & with deliberate prayers, Christ is healing the blindness of my heart & I am learning to see Christ in unexpected places. But, admittedly, it is much easier for me to see Christ in the joy of my grandson, the kindness in the eyes of my husband, or the thoughtfulness of a friend than Christ's distressing disguises.

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One of my nephews, raised without a faith, often joked with me when asked about his faith, that he could believe in "baby Jesus". At first I didn't quite know how to respond to his quip. "Baby Jesus" may be a great place to begin, the Christmas story is our first connection to Christ's human life. My nephew Teddy, has cerebral palsy, so a fragile and dependent baby would be easy to understand. Perhaps God came to humanity as one of us, & began life as we begin our journey, so that we could see Him in every aspect of our humanity. We can see Him as a baby, a young boy, in a family, eating, drinking, sleeping, with friend & sinners, celebrating & suffering, struggling & growing in all the things we do. He came to every part of humanity and to every one of us; both the vulnerable and the beautiful, the dependent & the strong, the suffering & the joyful.

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Advent opens our eyes to the gift of life, our beginnings too and the hope that every baby brings. We can celebrate & focus, see the fragile & precious beauty of Christ as an infant, and Christ with His mother & father. Some of us may be faithful enough to see with the perfect vision of a Mother Teresa & see Christ everywhere, but even so, learning to see the Christ child & celebrate His birth may help us to see not only the miraculous gift of love God gave humanity on Christmas two thousand years ago, but the gift of love every human life can be.

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Lord, help us to see Christ’s presence in prayerful reverence of all human life. Enlarge, our hardened hearts, heal our blindness, prepare us to see Christ’s Beauty everywhere & in everyone.

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Amen.

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~ debra.

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Readings

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Isaiah 25:6-10 • Psalms 23:1-3, 3-4, 5, 6 • Matthew 15:29-37

#canigetanamen #catholicbeauty #advent #catholicadvent #catholiclove #advent2021 #catholicforgiveness #catholicadvent2021 #advent2021🕯

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Protect

First Week of

Beautiful Advent

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Tuesday's Healing Moment

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Pregnant women live in a different world, absorbed in the life growing within them. There is an instinct to protect, nurture and cherish this child to be born unto her.  Expectant fathers too, develop an instinct to protect, provide for their new family. There is tenderness towards this tiny and fragile new life and as the mother's body changes and prepares for the coming child, the parents also prepare their hearts and homes.

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What if we developed this same attitude during Advent —preparing and protecting our faith within, encouraging and embracing the mystery of our faith and love in God? Our faith is growing, even during the seasons of doubt and darkness in our lives? I did not know how to nurture or protect my faith early on, it was difficult to know how to nurture the mustard seed of my new faith. Over the years there have been other seasons of winter and darkness, fallow seasons of wondering if anything will grow again.

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I know that if I do not make the space for new growth, if I do not nurture and protect, hope and tend the fragile new seeds of growth, who I am before God begins to wither. When defined by the world, something inside is trampled on by the busyness, materialism, doubt, and fear. Each day needs precious space for the silence and beauty of God. As I make a gift of time to give to God, He helps me nurture my gifts so I can discover what I have to share with others.

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What gifts do you need to nurture, cherish and protect?

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~ debra.

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Readings

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Romans 10:9-18 • Psalms 19:2-3, 4-5 • Matthew 4:18-22

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#canigetanamen #advent #catholicbeauty #catholicadvent #catholiclove #catholichope #advent2021🎄

Mother Mary Moment

Thirty - Third Week of

Beautiful Ordinary Time

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Prayer to Our Lady, Assumed in Heaven

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Immaculate Virgin,

‭‭Mother of Jesus and our Mother, we believe in your triumphant Assumption into Heaven where the angels and saints acclaim you as Queen.

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We join them in praising you and bless the Lord who raised you above all creatures.

With them we offer you our devotion and love.

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We are confident that you watch over our daily efforts and needs,and we take comfort from the faith in the coming resurrection.

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We look to you, our life, our sweetness, and our hope. After this earthly life, show us Jesus, the blest fruit of your womb, O kind, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.

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Amen.

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Readings

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First Maccabees 6:1-13 • Psalms 9:2-3, 4, 6, 16, 19 • Luke 20:27-40.

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#canigetanamen #catholic #catholicprayer #blessedtobecatholic

IN THE BEAUTIFUL

Thirty - Third Week of

Beautiful Ordinary Time

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Friday Healing Moment

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The radiance of the beauty we contemplate opens the soul to the mystery of God...Indeed, when love and the quest for beauty flow from a vision of faith, we can have a deeper perception of things and enter into contact with the One who is the source of every beautiful thing.

~ Dubay, Thomas. Gazing On the Beauty of the Lord. Catholic Culture, Feb. 2003.

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Readings

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First Maccabees 4:36-37, 52-59 • First Chronicles 29:10, 11, 11-12, 12 • Luke 19:45-48.

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#canigetanamen #catholic #catholicbook #CatholicCulture #thomasDubay

Act of Thanksgiving

Thirty - Third Week of Beautiful Ordinary Time

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Thursday Healing Moment

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The word "Eucharist" means literally "act of thanksgiving." To celebrate the Eucharist and to live a Eucharistic life has everything to do with gratitude. Living Eucharistically is living life as a gift, a gift for which one is grateful. But gratitude is not the most obvious response to life, certainly not when we experience life as a series of losses! Still, the great mystery we celebrate in the Eucharist and live in a Eucharistic life is precisely that through mourning our losses we come to know life as a gift.

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~ Henri J.M. Nouwen, With Burning Hearts: A Meditation on the Eucharistic Life.

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Readings

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First Maccabees 2:15-29 • Psalms 50:1-2, 5-6, 14-15 • Luke 9:41-44.

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#canigetanamen #Eucharist #catholic #catholicbook #WithBurningHearts #Eucharistlife #HenriNouwen #CatholicPriest #HenriJMNouwen.

LETTING GO

Thirty - Third Week of Beautiful Ordinary Time

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Wednesday Healing Moment

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Letting go is never easy. Indeed, it is a lifelong process. But letting go is possible if we understand the importance of opening our hearts and, above all else, developing a healthy prayer life. It has taken me a lifetime to learn these truths,... I decided to give God the first hour of my day, no matter what, to be with Him in prayer and meditation where I would try to open the door even wider to His entrance. This put my life in a new and uplifting perspective.

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My daily prayer is that I can open wide the doors of my heart to Jesus and His expectation of me.

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~ Bernardin, Cardinal Joseph. The Gift of Peace, p. 3,6,7.

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Readings

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Second Maccabees 7:1, 20-31 • Psalms 17:1, 5-6, 8, 15 • Luke 19:11-28.

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#canigetanamen #catholicbook #catholicbeauty #catholiclove #TheGiftofPeace #cardinaljosephbernardin

Healing Saint Moment

Thirty - Third Week of

Beautiful Ordinary Time

Saint Gertrude the Great‭‭

Healing Saint Gertrude Moment

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“O Sacred Heart of Jesus, fountain of eternal life, Your Heart is a glowing furnace of Love. You are my refuge and my sanctuary. O my adorable and loving Savior, consume my heart with the burning fire with which Yours is aflamed. Pour down on my soul those graces which flow from Your love. Let my heart be united with Yours. Let my will be conformed to Yours in all things. May Your Will be the rule of all my desires and actions. Amen.”

~ Saint Gertrude

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Readings

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Second Maccabees 6:18-3 • Psalms 3:2-3, 4-5, 6-8 • Luke 19:1-10.

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#canigetanamen #StGertrude #saintoftheday #SaintGertrude #catholicsaint #StGertrudetheGreat #SaintGertrudetheGreat #SaintGertrudeofHelfta

Healing Saint Moment

Thirty - Third Week of

Beautiful Ordinary Time

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Healing Feast Day ‭

Saint Albert the Great

bishop & Doctor

PRAYER TO SAINT ALBERT THE GREAT

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O Divine Creator,

Saint Albert was a bishop

who introduced Greek and Arabic science to medieval Europe,

raising understanding of botany,

biology, physics, and other studies of nature.

A scientist himself,

he wrote many books on these subjects.

I ask him to pray for all scientists today,

for their talents to be used

to promote life rather than to destroy it,

for elusive cures to be found,

and for the moral use of the discoveries

that they have already made.

O Lord, fill them with Your Holy Spirit

to guide them into understanding

and respecting that You are the Author

and Master of all creation.

Saint Albert,

pray for us.

Amen.

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Readings

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First Maccabees 1:10-15, 41-43, 54-57, 62-63 • Psalms 119:53, 61, 134, 150, 155, 158 • Luke 18:35-43.

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#canigetanamen #rogerthat #feastday #catholicsaint #StAlberttheGreat #SaintAlberttheGreat

The Practice of Prayer

Thirty-Third Week of

Beautiful Ordinary Time

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Sunday’s Healing Moment

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All is gift. Just behind "that small tear in the surface of the world" breathes the generous living God, the divine artist.

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~ Christopher Pramuk.

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Sometimes when we least want to pray, when we are stressed, busy, tired, and overwhelmed, this is the time to pray. This may be particularly true when our situations are ones of extreme burden or distress--the expression and listening discovered through prayer may be a path through this maze of suffering.

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Out of the silence of contemplative prayer arises order, a vision of hope--even beauty, as patterns of God's design are illuminated in our lives. Patiently, as we trust and pray, wait and believe, love's winged graces arrive on wings of hope. And all this, as we simply and patiently practice the daily discipline of prayer, making a space in our lives for time alone with God.

~ debra.

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Readings

Daniel 12:1-3 • Psalms 16:5, 8, 9-10, 11 • Mark 13:24-32 • Hebrews 10:11-14, 18

#canigetanamen #catholic #catholicbeauty #catholiclove #catholicministry