I don't think he's too crazy about......

my homemade cranberry relish (he did like the sweet potatoes though as you can see by his face!):

Rejoice! A King is born

Merry Christmas to all of you!  I am thankful for you!  

The Great O Antiphons of Advent

Saturday begins the Great O Antiphons, prayed during the last week of Advent.  You can download and print the O Antiphons at The Crossroads Initiative (a ministry of Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio).  The O Antiphons are used during evening prayer as the antiphon when praying the Magnificat for the Liturgy of the Hours.  Praying the O Antiphons together as a family during the last week before Christmas is a great way to build excitement for our celebration of the birth of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on Christmas Day!  Here is what The Crossroad Initiative had to say about the O Antiphons:

Each of the O Antiphons highlights a different title for the Messiah: O Sapientia (O Wisdom), O Adonai (O Lord), O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse), O Clavis David (O Key of David), O Oriens (O Rising Sun), O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations), and O Emmanuel.  Also, each one refers to the prophecy of Isaiah of the coming of the Messiah.  A particularly fascinating feature of the O Antiphons is that the first letter of each invocation, when read backwards, forms an acrostic in Latin: the first letters of Sapientia, Adonai, Radix, Clavis, Oriens, Rex, and Emmanuel in reverse form the Latin words: ERO CRAS.  These can be understood as the words of Christ, responding to his people's plea, saying "Tomorrow I will be there."

Remember to go to The Crossroads Initiative to see the verses of the O Antiphons and download a printable version you can use to pray next week!

May you have a blessed final week of Advent!

Quote of the Day

DS1:  "Mom, all I want for Christmas is a Bible and a $400 lego death star."

:)

Zeal for the Mission

See the New Evangelization in action.  This video was made by a FOCUS missionary who touched so many people with his kindness and love for Christ while living here.  You can learn more about FOCUS here.  And FOCUS missions here.  Curtis Martin, President and Founder of FOCUS, has been appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to the Pontifical Council on Promoting the New Evangelization.  He is one of 6 lay Catholics and one of 2 Americans appointed to the 15-member council.




Thanks Jenn for sending this video!

Mother of Hope

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of Hope, pray for us!

Pope Benedict XVI on Mary, Star of Hope:

From the Cross you received a new mission. From the Cross you became a mother in a new way: the mother of all those who believe in your Son Jesus and wish to follow him. The sword of sorrow pierced your heart. Did hope die? Did the world remain definitively without light, and life without purpose? At that moment, deep down, you probably listened again to the word spoken by the angel in answer to your fear at the time of the Annunciation: “Do not be afraid, Mary!” (Lk 1:30). How many times had the Lord, your Son, said the same thing to his disciples: do not be afraid! In your heart, you heard this word again during the night of Golgotha. Before the hour of his betrayal he had said to his disciples: “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16:33). “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (Jn 14:27). “Do not be afraid, Mary!” In that hour at Nazareth the angel had also said to you: “Of his kingdom there will be no end” (Lk 1:33). Could it have ended before it began? No, at the foot of the Cross, on the strength of Jesus's own word, you became the mother of believers. In this faith, which even in the darkness of Holy Saturday bore the certitude of hope, you made your way towards Easter morning. The joy of the Resurrection touched your heart and united you in a new way to the disciples, destined to become the family of Jesus through faith. In this way you were in the midst of the community of believers, who in the days following the Ascension prayed with one voice for the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. Acts 1:14) and then received that gift on the day of Pentecost. The “Kingdom” of Jesus was not as might have been imagined. It began in that hour, and of this “Kingdom” there will be no end. Thus you remain in the midst of the disciples as their Mother, as the Mother of hope. Holy Mary, Mother of God, our Mother, teach us to believe, to hope, to love with you. Show us the way to his Kingdom! Star of the Sea, shine upon us and guide us on our way!  ~Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi

Where do you start?

When your house is a mess, is there a place you can always begin that will jump start you into action? Is there a place where you can attend to the task in front of you and then be able to move on to tackle the rest of the mess? This is the only way I can move forward sometimes, otherwise I get completely overwhelmed by the work in front of me.

This task for me is laundry. It is really hard for me to begin cleaning the rest of the house when the laundry is out of control (unfortunately this happens a LOT at our house). For some it's the kitchen. Others start in the bathroom. I can toss all the laundry in an unsorted disaster into another room and ignore it for awhile while "pretending" to straighten up and clean, but my heart is not really into it. I have an underlying anxiety about the unseen piles of clothes waiting to be sorted, washed, dried, folded, and finally put away. The funny thing (or maybe not so funny) is that staying caught up with laundry is not one of my strong suits. Go figure. I think God lets us struggle with precisely that which will give us the most benefit.

I was thinking about this yesterday and today as I have been tackling Mt. Washmore in pursuit of getting to the other side and starting to really clean our home. And as with just about everything that happens in my life, I began to think about this in terms of an allegory to the spiritual life. Where do I start spiritually when my life is a mess? What do I have to tackle first in order to get to the rest of the mess?

The first thing I always have to do before I can receive the Truth of God's Love for me, is to lay down my pride and quit seeking the affections and approval of other people. There, I said it. I am overly concerned with what people think of me, and it is paralyzing. God has healed this in my heart before, and He continues to do so when I begin to forget or begin to let my desire for the affections of others take over my thoughts and actions.

This is what was on my heart when I picked up Seven Deadly Sins Seven Lively Virtues by Fr. Robert Barron, through a Lighthouse Catholic Media display at the local Newman Center. I was inspired to get this CD in part due to the excellent series Mary has been doing at her blog The Beautiful Gate on the seven deadly sins. God is good! Here is what Fr. Barron had to say just at the beginning of this talk:

"We have been loved into existence by God... God doesn't need us.... God can't
be self-interested...Whatever exists, including you, is coming forth right now
as the result of a sheerly generous act, and that's where your worth comes
from."

This and everything else on the CD is exactly what God wants to tell me today. My worth comes from Him and not from anyone else. This is where I begin. I begin from Him. And so do you. So where will you go this week with that knowledge?

If you would like to learn more about what Fr. Barron has to say about the 7 Deadly Sins and the opposing 7 Lively Virtues, you can purchase the CD from Lighthouse Catholic Media. Or go check out a four part series of sermons on the Seven Deadly Sins and opposing antedotes at Word on Fire:

Fr. Barron's Sermon 7: on Pride / Humility

Fr. Barron's Sermon 8: on Envy / Admiration and Anger / Forgiveness

Fr. Barron's Sermon 9: on Sloth / Zeal for the Mission and Avarice / Generosity

Fr. Barron's Sermon 10: on Gluttony / Asceticism and Lust / Profound Respect for the Other

Wyoming Catholic College

Truth with Zeal

The Holy Spirit gives us joy. And He is joy. Joy is the gift in which all the other gifts are included. It is the expression of happiness, of being in harmony with ourselves, that which can only come from being in harmony with God and with his creation. It belongs to the nature of joy to be radiant; it must communicate itself. The missionary spirit of the Church is none other than the impulse to communicate the joy which has been given. ~Pope Benedict XVI, Christmas Address to the Roman Curia, 2008

Wondering where the new evangelization is? Here in our little midwest town, we are witnessing the new evangelization through an amazing group of Catholic missionaries, known as the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS).

Here in our town, Christ has brought the Catholic faith alive for college students across campus and across our community through the efforts of the FOCUS missionaries here. There are between 60 - 80 college students who attend daily Mass at the Newman Center. These students are reverent and love tradition. They are on fire for their faith and are are an inspiration to people in our family and families across the community. The FOCUS missionaries and their student disciples are living the sacramental life without fear and bringing the light of Christ to the darkness of our times.

At our university campus, we have four FOCUS missionaries (two women and two men) who have given their lives radically to Christ and His Holy Church. They disciple students to lead Bible studies and various community activities that evangelize to the Truth of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church. We are currently supporting two FOCUS missionary families in the United States by giving on a monthly basis, specifically for these two families. There are hundreds of FOCUS missionaries across the country (and now internationally!) that raise their own money for support of their mission work. If you are interested in finding a missionary to support with a one-time or an ongoing gift, go check them out at FOCUSonline.org. This has been the best investment we have ever made, both for the growth we have experienced in our own faith and for the fruit we have seen by Christ's work through FOCUS.

If you have any questions, or would like to know the names of some specific missionaries we know personally that you can support, send me an email at intheirhearts@gmail.com