May you and your family have a blessed and holy Christmas!

 

The angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord. And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger."

And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests." - Luke 2:9-14

Hallelujah!

These videos have been spreading through the internet since November. This season, in the middle of busy shopping areas such as malls, flash mobs have gathered and surprised shoppers by beautifully singing the "Hallelujah Chorus". I don't know if their reasons for singing this song are religious or just to spread a little culture, but anytime a group boldly sings in public a song proclaiming that Christ is the "King of Kings and Lord of Lords", it is a moving sight.

I personally think that it is the work of the Holy Spirit inspiring not only the people in the flash mobs to sing this, but also the unsuspecting shoppers to stop their Christmas shopping and sing along. Enjoy the videos below of flash mobs singing praises to Christ from different shopping areas around the country.

Be Not Afraid

By now, you may have heard about the Marian apparition in Wisconsin being the first in the United States to receive official approval by the local Bishop. The apparition of Our Lady of Good Help was approved as "worthy of belief" by Bishop David Ricken of Green Bay Wisconsin. Click on the headline below for more detail on this apparition.

Wisconsin chapel approved as first US Marian apparition site

When I first read about this, I was really drawn to the simple message that Our Lady gave to Adele Brise in Wisconsin in 1859:

The Virgin Mary also gave her a mission of evangelism and catechesis: “Gather the children in this wild country, and teach them what they should know for salvation … Go and fear nothing. I will help you.”

We have heard a similar message associated with Mary in the past. When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary at the Annunciation, he told her to "Fear not!". The first words Pope John Paul II spoke to the crowd outside the Vatican shortly after he was selected to be the next Pope were "Be Not Afraid." It is a well documented fact that John Paul II had a very strong devotion to our Lady. Our Lady of Guadalupe spoke similar words to Blessed Juan Diego:

Do not fear this nor any other sickness or anguish. Am I, your Mother, not here? Are you not under my protection?

We are living in times of increasing darkness in our world. Secularism and relativism are growing and with them, immorality and an open hostility towards Christianity. Our nation appears to be crumbling economically causing many to fear for the future. This message from Our Lady of Good help could not have come at a more appropriate time. Rather than put our faith in men who promise "hope" and "change", let us focus on our Lady's words : "Go and fear nothing. I will help you.” 

With Mary beside us, offering us Her protection as She leads us to Christ, we truly have nothing to fear. This is the real hope our world so desperately needs. During this Christmas season and into the new year, focus on our Lady's message and make an effort to develop a devotion to Her. I have personally seen the difference it can make in a person's life when we place ourselves under the protection of our Mother.

O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to Thee.

Remember, O most loving Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, we turn to you, O Virgins of virgins, our Mother. To you we come, before you we stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, do not despise our petitions, but in your mercy hear us and answer us. Amen.

Related articles

• America Gets Its 1st Approved Apparition! (ncregister.com)
• Marian apparition approved in D. of Green Bay, WI (wdtprs.com)
• You: Church affirms Virgin Mary apparition in Wisconsin (latimes.com)
• Mary's life shows God's mercy is more powerful than evil, Pope says on feast day
• On The Immaculate Conception

Fourth Week of Advent: No Room At The Inn

“She wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7).
 

The fact that there was no room for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in the inn at Bethlehem on the first Christmas should make us wonder, because the birth of Christ was foreseen and planned by God from all eternity. Hundreds of years before it happened, the prophets announced he would be born of a virgin (Is. 7:14) and that Bethlehem would be his birthplace (Micah 5:2). Many other details of his life and death were also foretold. Did God, then, forget to make room for his only Son? How is it possible that there was no room, when the child born at Christmas owns the inn, and Bethlehem, and the world, and every inch of room in the whole universe?

Obviously, God did this on purpose. There was no room in the inn, because this demonstrates that world has rejected God. The world makes no room for the God who created it. There was no room in the inn because God wanted to show that His Son comes as a Savior, to reconcile a world that is at enmity with God. Being turned away from the inn foreshadows the fact that the Savior himself will be rejected, despised, and ultimately crucified, and that all this was part of God’s plan from all eternity. Ultimately, the lack of room in the inn symbolizes the lack of room we make for him in our hearts. When our hearts are filled with all kinds of other desires than God, we gradually crowd him out altogether.

Click here to read the rest of this meditation by Fr. Frank Pavone. 

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• Advent Reflection: Holy Mother, Holy Child, Born of Each Other

The Third Week of Advent: Downsize!

The other day I went to McDonalds with my boys.  Since we all were hungry I ordered a meal for them and one for me. Then came the question that we all have grown so used to hearing- “Would you like to supersize that?”  Not just “Would you like a large order?”  Not even “Would you like an extra-large order?”  But would you like a “Super-Sized” order?  I figured that enough supersized fries would result in a supersized me, so I declined.  But it got me to thinking, “What are some other ways that I do ‘supersize’ me?”  While I passed on the fries, I realized that there are many ways that I sometimes try to make a larger “me” than I should.  I don’t think I’m alone in this temptation either.

In C.S. Lewis’ popular work, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, two characters, Lucy and Edmund, are described as very different people.  Lucy is honest, patient, compassionate, and selfless.  Edmund is presented, almost from the first page of the book, as spiteful, mean, and very self-centered.   Edmund is deceived and tempted by the White Witch to betray his brother and sisters in an old and very simple way.  The White Witch offers to supersize his ego.  She says:

“I want a nice boy I could bring up as a Prince and who would be King of Narnia when I am gone.  While he was Prince he would wear a hold crown and eat Turkish Delight all day long; and you are much the cleverest and handsomest young man I have ever met.  I think I would like to make you the Prince- someday when you bring the others to me.”¹

She appeals to his ego.  She flatters him and pulls all the right strings- strings that trip him up and lead to a major crisis in the book.  In some ways Edmund is a type -sort of an example of what trips up almost everyone in one way or another.  The temptations that we all face, as varied as they are, are almost always a temptation to place ourselves at the center of the universe.  The temptation is to crown ourselves Prince or Princess.

Yesterday, which marked the beginning of the third week of Advent, continues in the vein of weeks one and two by calling us to prepare for the coming of Christ –after all, that was the expressed task of John the Baptist.

Click here to read the rest of this Advent Meditation.

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• Pope: Be Constant, Patient, Have No Fear Of Being Adrift

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Hail Mary, Full of Grace - Meditations on the Immaculate Conception

Just suppose that you could have pre-existed your own mother, in much the same way that an artist pre-exists his painting. Furthermore, suppose that you had an infinite power to make your mother anything that you pleased, just as a great artist like Raphael has the power of realizing his artistic ideals. Suppose you had this double power, what kind of mother would you have made for yourself? Would you have made her of such a type that would make you blush because of her unwomanly and unmotherlike actions? Would you have in any way stained and soiled her with the selfishness that would make her unattractive not only to you, but to your fellow-man? Would you have made her exteriorly and interiorly of such a character as to make you ashamed of her, or would you have made her, so far as human beauty goes, the most beautiful woman in the world; and so far as beauty of the soul goes, one who would radiate every virtue, every manner of kindness and charity and loveliness; one who by the purity of her life and her mind and her heart would be an inspiration not only to you, but even to your fellow-men, so that all would look up to her as the very incarnation of what is best in motherhood?

 Now if you who are an imperfect being and who have not the most delicate conception of all that is fine in life would have wished for the loveliest of mothers, do you think that our Blessed Lord, who not only pre-existed His own mother but who had an infinite power to make her just what He chose, would in virtue of all the infinite delicacy of His spirit make her any less pure and loving and beautiful than you would have made your own mother? If you who hate selfishness would have made her selfless and you who hate ugliness would have made her beautiful, do you not think that the Son of God, who hates sin, would have made His own mother sinless and He who hates moral ugliness would have made her immaculately beautiful?

-Bishop Fulton Sheen on the Immaculate Conception

Immaculate Warrior Queen

She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for Her heel (Gen 3:15b).

This primordial prophecy of sacred scripture is a word picture that has served over the ages to instill in the hearts of the faithful confidence in the power of the Immaculate Conception.  The image of the Woman of Genesis 3:15 with Her foot on the head of the serpent is a source of confidence of countless souls who wear the Miraculous Medal (the Medal of the Immaculate Conception).  St. Maximilian called the Medal his Silver Bullet.  Indeed it is a visual exorcism over the enemies of faith and charity, because of its reference to Genesis 3:15.

Blessed Pope Pius IX utilized this verse, evincing such a militant and confident spirit, as the principle scriptural text in the bull of definition for the Immaculate Conception, Ineffabilis Deus.

The verse in its entirety reads: (a) I will put enmities between thee and the Woman, and thy seed and Her seed; (b) She shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for Her heel. Pius IX, in accord with the received tradition, teaches that enmity exists between the Woman and the serpent only because She is never under His power through sin.  The enmity indicates, not only the fact that there is this unbridgeable gulf between the Woman and the serpent, but also that the two are engaged in an unending conflict.  In this She is associated with Her Seed, namely, Christ.  In fact this association is emphasized in the verse in the way that parts (a) and (b) complete each other.  The first part sets up a parallel that is recapitulated in the second.

Click here to read the rest of this meditation on the Immaculate Conception.


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2nd Sunday of Advent: John the Baptist - The Witness

John, the great witness, preaches the truth of Christ to the massive crowds of people that listen to him.  These are people who are hungry for the truth.  They are tired of the burdens imposed upon them by their own leaders, the Pharisees and the foreign leaders represented by King Herod.  The human person cannot be held captive by repressive systems that continue to lie.  "A voice of one crying out in the desert: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths'"  (Matthew 3: 3).

Why is an obscure figure of the Bible relevant for us today?  Why does the Catholic Church, on the Second Sunday of Advent, present John the Baptist for our reflection? Saint John the Baptist commands our interest because he is a witness.  By his witness, he reminds us that we are called to be witnesses.  And in any age, to be a witness is challenging.

The witness of John the Baptist begins with his birth.  The miraculous circumstances of his conception and birth direct our attention to the mysterious and transcendent.  An angel announces his birth to a woman well beyond childbearing years.  His father is struck dumb for his disbelief.  As an infant, John, leaps in his mother's womb when he is in the presence of the Messiah's mother.  Upon his birth, he is given not his father's name, but rather the name, John, which translates "Yahweh is gracious." With the giving of this name spoken by the angel, John's father, Zechariah, recovers his power of speech. Thus the miraculous circumstances surrounding his beginnings give witness to a sacred world, a world reaching beyond time and space.

Click here to read the rest of the reflection for the 2nd week of Advent.

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• Behold a Mighty Prophet Comes: John, the Renegade Priest (wordonfire.org)