Forum on Christianity and Spirituality December 4, 2025, 7:30 p.m. CST Topic: Our Original Face: The Immaculate Conception by Carla Mae Streeter, OP See https://shalomplace.com/inetmin/forum.html for more information and registration.
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Message of the Day
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If we do not at least try to manifest something of Creative Charity in our dealings with life, whether by action, thought, or prayer, and do it at our own cost -- if we roll up the talent of love in the nice white napkin of piety and put it safely out of the way, sorry that the world is so hungry and thirsty, so sick and so fettered, and leave it at that: then, even that little talent may be taken from us. We may
discover at the crucial moment that we are spiritually bankrupt. ... Evelyn Underhill, The School of Charity How will you "manifest something of Creative Charity" this day? Pray for the grace to be true to your resolution.
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Readings of the Day
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Isaiah 4:2-6 Psalm 122:1-2, 3-4b, 4cd-5, 6-7,
8-9 Matthew 8:5-11 When Jesus went into Capernaum a centurion came up and pleaded with him. ‘Sir,’ he said ‘my servant is lying at home paralysed, and in great pain.’ ‘I will come myself and cure him’ said Jesus. The centurion replied, ‘Sir, I am not worthy to have you under my roof; just give the word and my servant will be cured. For I am under authority myself, and have
soldiers under me; and I say to one man: Go, and he goes; to another: Come here, and he comes; to my servant: Do this, and he does it.’ When Jesus heard this he was astonished and said to those following him, ‘I tell you solemnly, nowhere in Israel have I found faith like this. And I tell you that many will come from east and west to take their places with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob at the feast in the kingdom of
heaven.’
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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“I will come…” —Matthew 8:7 We’re getting our Christmas trees ready. We’re preparing for guests to enter the Christmas parties we host. We’ll let
the guests we invite to our Christmas parties enter into our homes when they knock at our doors, but will we let Jesus in? Advent is about the Lord trying to enter. “Let the Lord enter, He is King of Glory” (see Ps 24:9).
St. Joseph knocked on many doors in Bethlehem, searching for a home that would open its doors to his family as Mary was about to give birth to Jesus. However, no one in Bethlehem let them enter (Lk 2:7). Elsewhere, some
did let the Lord enter. The centurion was ready to welcome Jesus, even though he considered himself unworthy (Lk 7:6). Zacchaeus (Lk 19:5-6), St. Martha (Jn 12:2), and St. Matthew (Mt 9:10) welcomed Jesus into their homes. How about you? Jesus stands knocking at your door (Rv 3:20). At Christmas, we will sing, “Let every heart prepare Him room.” Prepare your home and your heart for the Lord. Let Jesus enter under the roof of your mouth in
the Holy Eucharist (see Mt 8:8). Go to Mass more frequently this Advent. He longs for you to let Him enter — into your mouth, body, soul, and home. Prayer: Jesus, may I welcome You with the joy of Zacchaeus, Matthew, and Martha. Promise: “For over all, His glory will be shelter and protection.” —Is
4:6
Presentation Ministries
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Spiritual Reading
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Dilexi Te: On the Human and Divine Love of the Heart of Jesus Christ, by Pope Francis (completed by Pope Leo XIII), 2025. https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/20241024-enciclica-dilexit-nos.html CHAPTER ONE THE HEART UNITES THE FRAGMENTS
20. In this age of artificial intelligence, we cannot forget that poetry and love are necessary to save our humanity. No algorithm will ever be able to capture, for example, the nostalgia that
all of us feel, whatever our age, and wherever we live, when we recall how we first used a fork to seal the edges of the pies that we helped our mothers or grandmothers to make at home. It was a moment of culinary apprenticeship, somewhere between child-play and adulthood, when we first felt responsible for working and helping one another. Along with the fork, I could also mention thousands of other little things that are a precious part of everyone’s life: a smile we elicited by telling a joke,
a picture we sketched in the light of a window, the first game of soccer we played with a rag ball, the worms we collected in a shoebox, a flower we pressed in the pages of a book, our concern for a fledgling bird fallen from its nest, a wish we made in plucking a daisy. All these little things, ordinary in themselves yet extraordinary for us, can never be captured by algorithms. The fork, the joke, the window, the ball, the shoebox, the book, the bird, the flower: all of these live on as
precious memories “kept” deep in our heart. 21. This profound core, present in every man and woman, is not that of the soul, but of the entire person in his or her unique psychosomatic identity. Everything finds its unity in the heart, which can be the dwelling-place of love in all its spiritual, psychic and even physical dimensions. In a word, if love reigns in our heart, we become, in a complete and
luminous way, the persons we are meant to be, for every human being is created above all else for love. In the deepest fibre of our being, we were made to love and to be loved.
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