Christmas Greetings – 2011
(Daily Prayer 2011, p. 392)
Dear Family and Friends,
“Dear Family and Friends,”
“With Christmas Midnight Mass upon us the evidence that another year of grace has come; 2011 is giving way to 2012. Carroll played in the finals of the NAIA Division II national football championship for the eighth time on December 17th seeking its seventh win. They played St. Xavier of Chicago after playoff wins over Azusa of California and Georgetown of Georgia. Unfortunately for Carroll, St. Xavier won 24-20.
The doctors and surgeons of 2011 have graced us with their wisdom and artisanship. Health demanded attention with some gains and losses. Jeanne's feeling better and is more settled while I continue to be less steady on my feet with a raised protime level.
Life's markers, birth days, anniversaries, Lent and Easter along with Advent and Christmas keep us alert to the changes taking place. The seasons offer contrasts in our surroundings – the year has witnessed four distinct seasons with appropriate temperature and moisture – summer had a five to six week drought.
In May we moved Jeanne's sister Jackie, from Emmetsburg, IA to St. Louis and in the past six months she has made a satisfactory adjustment in her new surroundings at Mark Twain Manor in Bridgeton, MO.
In October Paul celebrated his eightieth birthday with brother Pat and wife, Mary Kay spending a week in Montana with side trips to Helena for a Carroll Homecoming and a stopover to see the cabin renovation – the changes at the cabin were very pleasant and notable.
Our adult choir at St. Peter in Kirkwood sings 9 a.m. Mass September through June with practice once a week. The choir is enjoying immensely their double leadership of organist/pianist and director.
We enjoyed visits from both sides of the family. From Columbus, Ohio, Gabriela, a high school junior, has moved up to the National Soccer Team with her twin sister Emily holding up their local team. John Byorth from Livingston, MT tested the migratory bird hunting this fall in Missouri. Daniel, Jeanne's grandson, found work in Minot, North Dakota, as a sports writer. Minot was damaged seriously by the spring and early summer flooding with considerable evidence that a lot of flood damage still remains. Minot has become a boom town with the oil & gas fracking underway.
We attended two graduations in May and June and were unable to attend two others. Next May and June we see six graduations on the calendar – high school & college along with a wedding; we plan to be busy in May and June 2012.
May you be blessed with Happiness and Joy, with Peace and Justice and
may we be delivered from the Republican and Democrat game of the "King of the Hill" in the sandbox!”
(Signed) Paul and Jeanne
Christmas, 2011
““The liturgies of Christmas as set out in the sacramentary and lectionary seek to express and shape the spirituality not of one person or of a single cultural community but of the entire ecclesial bodies of those baptized into the pasch of Jesus Christ. They set before us the powerful challenge of the Christmas child who is not our personal or communal past but the dawning future we share with all humanity. Advent has prepared us for the child of the Christmas texts. We have heard the prophets proclaim the One who is to come as child to lead us into the reign of God unfolding toward completion (Is 9:6). We recognize him in the infant sung by angelic hosts as the one in whom peace is made for all humankind. But in all the liturgies of this joyful season, the angelic melody is sung in counterpoint to all the other texts recalling that our peace is made not through his clinging to childhood but through his growing into that fully divinized human glory of which the child was only the promise. It is through dark passages of suffering and death that the Christmas child shall lead us, stripping us of every hindrance we have gathered over the years, until we are set free to join him in that mature wholeness, as yet beyond our imagining. When we assemble for liturgy in the season of Christmas, then, we are a Church haunted by a child with many faces. Each of us brings to the assembly the image of the child within, whether that child be possibility or prison. Each of our local communities brings the images wrought by our devotional arts, whether those images be of past childishness or future maturity. Gathered as Church, within the living tradition of faith that spans centuries and continents, we proclaim the Child in whom meet the eternal paradoxes of divinity and humanity, birth and death, innocence and suffering, of which is wrought the shared adulthood of the one Body into which we are baptized. Our personal and communal imagery of childhood enables us to recognize in this Child not a dogmatic abstraction but the genuine fulfillment of our nameless yearning for some elusive land long promised. Yet the Christmas Child is also a gauntlet thrown down before the potential possessiveness of our personal and devotional spiritualities, unwilling to relinquish the pleasantly undemanding images of childishness to which we have grown accustomed for the radically demanding journey across desert and mountain and river to reach the place where the true Child is born. In the vulnerability of Christmas, the Child forever offers us Herod's choice. We can still our fear of the threat to our comfort by smothering the proclamation in the tight swaddling clothes of sentimental spiritualities. Or we can lay the gift of all our inadequate images beside the gold, the frankincense and myrrh, and bow the knee in worship. Then will the Child in whose image we are being made become our end...and our Beginning. pp 15,17,19. Ordo”'”
Taken from "What Child is This?" Jennifer Glenn, CCVI, in Assembly, Volume 11:2. © Notre Dame Center for Liturgy, Notre Dame, IN"
(General Norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar, #22)
Of her was born Jesus
“Mary is the woman who does not see herself, unless it be in Christ and, through him, in humanity; by giving birth to Jesus, who is the Son of God and the Son of Man, she gave birth to humanity. In the fiat of the Annunciation is the adherence of every one of us.
That is why no being is as permeable to the love of Christ as is the Blessed Virgin. That is why, as Dante says, she is the daughter of her Son. She is born of her Son, according to divine life, and that is why she was born of him as he could be of her.
This is precisely the reason why the Most Blessed Virgin remains a way of light to Jesus for us. It is a fact that it is impossible not to love the Blessed Virgin when we love Christ...
The Most Blessed Virgin is a kind of sacrament, the sacrament of God's tender love for us, for God is as much a father as a mother; and, besides, she is especially the Mother of Christ in us.
For Mary's motherhood is not a motherhood in time, it is a motherhood in eternity because she conceived in a total and absolute gift of herself, because she adopted us all in this acceptance of Jesus within her entire being. There is no end to her motherhood. She is the one who is the Mother of Christ in our lives; that is her role throughout eternity.
Hence, it is absolutely natural for us to expose ourselves to the radiant influence of the Blessed Virgin in order to receive from her this Christ she is eternally responsible for bringing to life in us. This is a wonderful and infallible gesture. It is impossible to turn ourselves to the Blessed Virgin without reaching Christ through her for, since she has nothing, she can only lead us to him.
To follow that road is to follow the very order of the Incarnation since it is through Mary that Jesus entered the world. It is always through Mary that Christ will enter into our souls; and the most amazing part of our trust in this inexhaustible motherhood of the Blessed Virgin is that we can at every moment avail ourselves of the love of the Blessed Virgin and offer it to our Lord.”
Believing the Lord's Words with Mary
“It seems to me more important than ever in our days to underscore the importance of constancy and patience, virtues that belonged to
the generation of our fathers but which are less popular today in a world that instead exalts change and the capacity always to adapt to new
situations. Advent calls us to strengthen that interior tenacity, that resistance of the soul that permits us not to despair in waiting for
some good thing that is late in coming, but to expect it, indeed, to prepare for its arrival with an active confidence. "Learn from the farmer,"
Saint James writes, "he awaits with constancy the precious fruit of the earth until it has received the first and the last rains. You too must
be constant, strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near" (Jas 5: 7-8). The comparison with the farmer is quite expressive: he
who has sown seeds in the field has before him some months of patient and constant expectation, but he knows that in the meantime the seed goes
through its cycle thanks to the autumn and spring rains. The farmer is not a fatalist, but is the model of a mentality that unites faith and
reason in a balanced way because, on the one hand, he knows the laws of nature and does his work well, and, on the other hand, he trusts in
Providence, because certain basic things are not in his hands but in God's hands. Patience and constancy are precisely the synthesis between
human effort and trust in God. "Strengthen your hearts," Scripture says. How can we do that? How can we strengthen our hearts, which are
already rather fragile, and made more unstable by the culture in which we are immersed? We do not lack help: the Word of God is there. Indeed,
while everything passes and changes, the Word of the Lord does not pass. If the vicissitudes of life make us feel lost and every certainty
seems to crumble, we have a compass for finding direction, we need not fear being adrift. The prophet finds his joy and his strength in the
power of the Lord's Word and, while men often seek happiness along paths that turn out to be mistaken, he announces the true hope, the one that
doesn't delude because it is founded on the fidelity of God. Every Christian, in virtue of his baptism, has received the prophetic dignity. May
every Christian rediscover it and develop it with an assiduous listening to the Divine Word. May the Virgin Mary, whom the Gospel calls blessed
because she believed that the Lord's words would be accomplished (cf. Lk 1: 45), obtain this for us.”
–Courtesy of the Magnificat for December 15, 2011.
My Christmas List of Blessings
“My Christmas List is more than just a way to keep track
of the special people God has brought into my life to love.
It’s like a treasured scrapbook filled with pleasant memories
of all the times God’s answered prayer through friends and family.
Every name’s a touchstone that leads to a place and time.
Where God has used another’s heart to reach out and touch mine.
It may have happened years ago or even yesterday,
but every person on my list has changed my life some way.
Through simple conversation, a warm hug or a shared meal,
every person on my list has changed my life some way.
Through simple conversation, a warm hug or a shared meal,
every person on my list has helped me grow or heal,
or laugh or love or learn or smile…
the blessings never end as God allows our paths to cross as family and friends.
So please know that this greeting is more than a Christmas wish.
It’s a “thank you” card to God for putting on my list
each and every one whose name I’ve come to hold so dear…
Those who’ve shown me Christmas joy each day of the year.”
Website Preface®
Welcome to my personal web page, a non-commercial site,
for the purpose of sharing areas of interest in secular and faith pursuits
which make up daily living in this country of ours. The fast moving pace
forces most of us, even senior citizens, to seek refuge for recreation.
You are welcome to
“take what you like
and leave the rest.”
My areas of interest are outlined on the Home Place page. The Home Place Page presents brief
highlights of the major areas for reflection. The Current Events Page will address
the immediate area of concern with the hope of stimulating discussion about that subject.
Website Table of Pages Index®
- Index Index
- Contents Contents.
- Home Place Home Place
– Areas of Interest, Pattern for Website. - Apostleship of Prayer Apostleship
of Prayer
– Monthly Intentions. - Current Events Current Events
– Present Concerns. - Faith Matters Faith Matters
- Family Matters Family Matters
– Great Grandparents, Grandparents and Burials. - First Things First Things
– Articles from Monthly First Things - Preparing Sunday Liturgy Liturgy
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– Current Pictures & Sources - Potpourri Potpourri
– Articles, Stories, and Songs - Readings Readings
– Good Reads - Recovery Recovery
– 12-Steping Individuals and Couples - Reflections Reflections
– Food For Thought - Resource Links Resource Links
– Table of Active Available Links - Rolheiser Rolheiser
– Readings from Rolheiser
Poem: The Road to Success
IMAGINE
THERE IS A CURVE CALLED FAILURE..
A LOOP CALLED CONFUSION..
SPEED BUMPS CALLED FRIENDS..
RED LIGHTS CALLED ENEMIES..
CAUTION LIGHTS CALLED FAMILY..
YOU WILL HAVE FLATS CALLED JOBS BUT..
IF YOU HAVE A SPARE CALLED DETERMINATION..
AN ENGINE CALLED PERSEVERANCE..
INSURANCE CALLED FAITH..
A DRIVER CALLED JESUS..
YOU WILL MAKE IT TO A PLACE CALLED SUCCESS!
“Why did my Father give you power over me? Because he wanted me to get very close to you to show you the depths of his love for you; not the distant love of a God who sits on a throne in his heaven and looks down on you on the earth, but the love of a Father who longs to help you to carry your burdens, to comfort and heal you, to give you every good gift. He wants to come into your homes, and to sit with you at your meals as one of the family. He wants to walk with you as a beloved friend. He could not do that himself and so he sent me, his only Son, to make his love known to you. I could take on your weakness and then act out my Father's name which is Love. Can you truly imagine the love of God? Can you understand the depth of your Father's love for you? The Father sent me to show you his love, and to act it out among you to give you an example to copy. I am the image of your unseen Father; in my life, and particularly in my passion, I showed you the depths to which love must be prepared to go. There is no room for fear in love, no room for shame, no excuses, no holidays. Love offers everything and expects no return. You cannot bear the unveiled love of God. It falls like a fire upon you and you are consumed and burnt up in its heat. You are not ready yet to be refined and purified by the naked flame of your Father's love for you, and so it has to be filtered, mediated to you through my flesh.”
—RICHARD HOBBS
Richard Hobbs (+ 1993) was a convert to Catholicism and the father of six sons.
"God grant me the serenity
to accept the people I can not change,
the courage to change the one I can,
and the wisdom to know ...it´s me."
Courtesy of Brother Maurus, O.S.B.
“The Winds of Grace always blow,Heard at an Al-Anon meeting
it is up to us to raise our sails!”
Prayer For Peace
To Mary, The Light of Hope
Pope John Paul II
“Immaculate Heart of Mary, help us to conquer the menace of evil, which so easily takes root in the hearts of the people of today, and whose immeasurable effects already weigh down upon our modern world and seem to block the paths toward the future.
From famine and war, deliver us.
From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us.
From sins against human life from its very beginning, deliver us.
From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us.
From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.
From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of Cod, deliver us.
From the loss of awareness of good and evil, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us.
Accept, 0 Mother of Christ,
this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings, laden with the sufferings of whole societies.
Help us with the power of the Holy Spirit conquer all sin: individual sin and the "sin of the world," sin in all its manifestations.
Let there be revealed once more in the history of the world the infinite saving power of the redemption:
the power of merciful love.
May it put a stop to evil.
May it transform consciences.
May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. Amen.”
Copyright © 2001, United States Conference Of Catholic Bishops, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Images Courtesy of Corbis, Inc. Used With Permission.
Text Courtesy Of L'Osservatore Romano. Used With Permission USCCB Publishing.
To Order Publication No. 5-490, Call 800-235-8722.
Muslim, Jewish, Christian Prayer for Peace
“O God, you are the Source of life and peace.
Praised be your name forever.
We know it is you who turn our minds to thoughts of peace.
Hear our grayer in this time of war.
Your power changes hearts.
Muslims, Christians, and Jews remember, and profoundly affirm,
that they are followers of the one God,
children of Abraham, brothers and sisters;
enemies begin to speak to one another;
those who were estranged join hands in friendship;
nations seek the way of peace together.
Strengthen our resolve to give witness to these truths
by the way we live. Give to us:
Understanding that puts an end to strife;
Mercy that quenches hatred, and
Forgiveness that overcomes vengeance.
Empower all people to live in your law of Love. Amen.”
532 West 8th Street
Erie, PA 16502-1343
814/453-4955
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Prayer to Christ the Healer
“In the comfort of your love,
I pour out to you, my Savior,
The memories that haunt me,
The anxieties that perplex me, The fears that stifle me,
The sickness that prevails upon me,
And the frustration of all the pain that weaves about
within me.
Lord, help me to see your peace in my turmoil,
your compassion in my sorrow,
your forgiveness in my weakness,
And, your love in my need.
Touch me, 0 Lord, with your healing power and strength.”
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