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Message of the Day
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I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach." — Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol How will you keep Christmas in your heart this year?
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Readings of the Day
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1 Samuel 1:24-28 1 Samuel 2:1, 4-5, 6-7,
8abcd Luke 1:46-56 Mary said: ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord and my spirit exults in God my saviour; because he has looked upon his lowly handmaid. Yes, from this day forward all generations will call me
blessed, for the Almighty has done great things for me. Holy is his name, and his mercy reaches from age to age for those who fear him. He has shown the power of his arm, he has routed the proud of heart. He has pulled down princes from their thrones and
exalted the lowly. The hungry he has filled with good things, the rich sent empty away. He has come to the help of Israel his servant, mindful of his mercy – according to the promise he made to our ancestors – of his mercy to Abraham and to his descendants for ever.’ Mary stayed with Elizabeth about
three months and then went back home.
USCCB lectionary
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Reflection on the Scripture
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“I prayed for this child.” —1 Samuel 1:27 The voices in the secular world proclaim: “There are only three shopping days left until Christmas.” The voices in the kingdom of God proclaim: “There are only
three repenting days left until Jesus’ birthday.” We have been preparing for the Christmas coming of Christ now for three weeks of Advent. Let’s have a strong finish to the Advent season by keeping vigil for these final three days. Instead of frantic rushes to shop for Christmas gifts, let us choose the better part (see Lk 10:42): to sit at the manger and prepare a welcome for Baby Jesus. We don’t want Him to have to ask, “Why was no one there when I came?” (Is 50:2) “Let
every heart prepare Him room.” Prayer: “My soul waits for the Lord more than sentinels wait for the dawn. More than sentinels wait for the dawn,” I will wait for You, Lord (Ps 130:6-7). Promise: “He has upheld Israel His servant, ever mindful of His mercy; even as He promised our fathers, promised Abraham and his descendants forever.”
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
26. Saint Bonaventure tells us that in the end we should not pray for light, but for “raging fire”. [17] He teaches that, “faith is in the intellect, in such a way as to provoke affection. In
this sense, for example, the knowledge that Christ died for us does not remain knowledge, but necessarily becomes affection, love”. [18] Along the same lines, Saint John Henry Newman took as his motto the phrase Cor ad cor loquitur, since, beyond all our thoughts and ideas, the Lord saves us by speaking to our hearts from his Sacred Heart. This realization led him, the distinguished intellectual, to recognize that his deepest encounter with himself and with the Lord came not from his
reading or reflection, but from his prayerful dialogue, heart to heart, with Christ, alive and present. It was in the Eucharist that Newman encountered the living heart of Jesus, capable of setting us free, giving meaning to each moment of our lives, and bestowing true peace: “O most Sacred, most loving Heart of Jesus, Thou art concealed in the Holy Eucharist, and Thou beatest for us still... I worship Thee then with all my best love and awe, with my fervent affection, with my most subdued, most
resolved will. O my God, when Thou dost condescend to suffer me to receive Thee, to eat and drink Thee, and Thou for a while takest up Thy abode within me, O make my heart beat with Thy Heart. Purify it of all that is earthly, all that is proud and sensual, all that is hard and cruel, of all perversity, of all disorder, of all deadness. So fill it with Thee, that neither the events of the day nor the circumstances of the time may have power to ruffle it, but that in Thy love and Thy fear it may
have peace”. [19] 27. Before the heart of Jesus, living and present, our mind, enlightened by the Spirit, grows in the understanding of his words and our will is moved to put them into practice. This could easily remain on the level of a kind of self-reliant moralism. Hearing and tasting the Lord, and paying him due honour, however, is a matter of the heart. Only the heart is capable of setting our other powers and passions,
and our entire person, in a stance of reverence and loving obedience before the Lord.
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