A very merry Christmas and a blessed new year to you all from the friars!
The following quote captures our uncomplicated approach to ministry:
"This is the real commitment of Advent: to bring joy to others.
Joy is the true gift of Christmas, not expensive presents that demand time and money.We can transmit this joy simply: with a smile, with a kind gesture, with some small help, with forgiveness.
Let us give this joy and the joy given will be returned to us. Let us seek in particular to communicate the deepest joy, that of knowing God in Christ. Let us pray that this presence of God's liberating joy will shine out in our lives" (Pope Benedict XVI, December 18, 2005).
Thank you for all your prayers and support. We greatly appreciate your help. You have our prayers!
- The Friars
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Friday, December 24, 2010
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Our Daily Advent
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| Our Daily Advent |
The candles, already burning,
cry out like a voice in the wilderness,
"Prepare the way of the Lord."
The key is in the tabernacle lock
ready to spring open the heavens at the sound
of a resounding "yes"!
"Let it be done to me according to your Word."
The corporal is open and laid out
like a receiving blanket.
"She wrapped Him in swaddling cloths."
The monstrance,
made for one purpose only,
stands open, empty, waiting.
"Behold the handmaid of the Lord."
"The Spirit and the Bride say come!"
Our Daily Advent.
by Sr. Clare Matthiass, CFR
Monday, December 6, 2010
Advent Like an Addict
This Advent I want to pray like a heroin addict.
I realize that this statement may require some explanation. On Thanksgiving Day I was eating dinner across from a man and woman at St. Ann’s soup kitchen where we usually help out on Mondays and Wednesdays. As the novice brothers were playing a song in the background with some powerful lines about blessing the Name of the Lord in good times and in bad, I noticed the man quietly singing along with tears in his eyes. After dinner both of them asked for prayer. Both of them are heroin addicts who desperately want to be freed from their slavery to that drug. Both of them were fervent in seeking the Lord’s help, humble in asking pardon, direct in acknowledging their weakness and just so real in their plea for Christ to come and take control of their lives.
How casually most of us usually pray those words in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” How will it come? Certainly we must do our part to put the gifts that the Lord has given us at His service, our time and energy into helping others to respond to the gift of salvation. But as the author Carlo Caretto points out, the Kingdom of God is not brought about so much by great feats of the intellect or displays of strength or other resources. If that were so, then the Kingdom of God would belong primarily to the strong and the wealthy. Rather, the Kingdom of God is brought about primarily by the heartfelt cry to the poor man who puts his whole being into the prayer “Thy Kingdom come! Come Lord and save us!” Indeed the first Beatitude promises the Kingdom of God first to the poor in spirit, and what they are awarded because of the depth of their longing they win not only for themselves, but for the rest of the Church and the world.
The beginning of Advent and a new Church year is a good time to begin again with a real, heartfelt, wide-awake prayer for Jesus to save us who are all addicted to sin, but who trust in His power to save. Please pray for heroin addicts in particular when you lift up your heart with them and plead with real intensity, “Come Lord Jesus!”
Fr. Richard Roemer, CFR
(re-posted from November 29, 2005)
I realize that this statement may require some explanation. On Thanksgiving Day I was eating dinner across from a man and woman at St. Ann’s soup kitchen where we usually help out on Mondays and Wednesdays. As the novice brothers were playing a song in the background with some powerful lines about blessing the Name of the Lord in good times and in bad, I noticed the man quietly singing along with tears in his eyes. After dinner both of them asked for prayer. Both of them are heroin addicts who desperately want to be freed from their slavery to that drug. Both of them were fervent in seeking the Lord’s help, humble in asking pardon, direct in acknowledging their weakness and just so real in their plea for Christ to come and take control of their lives.
How casually most of us usually pray those words in the Lord’s Prayer, “Thy kingdom come.” How will it come? Certainly we must do our part to put the gifts that the Lord has given us at His service, our time and energy into helping others to respond to the gift of salvation. But as the author Carlo Caretto points out, the Kingdom of God is not brought about so much by great feats of the intellect or displays of strength or other resources. If that were so, then the Kingdom of God would belong primarily to the strong and the wealthy. Rather, the Kingdom of God is brought about primarily by the heartfelt cry to the poor man who puts his whole being into the prayer “Thy Kingdom come! Come Lord and save us!” Indeed the first Beatitude promises the Kingdom of God first to the poor in spirit, and what they are awarded because of the depth of their longing they win not only for themselves, but for the rest of the Church and the world.
The beginning of Advent and a new Church year is a good time to begin again with a real, heartfelt, wide-awake prayer for Jesus to save us who are all addicted to sin, but who trust in His power to save. Please pray for heroin addicts in particular when you lift up your heart with them and plead with real intensity, “Come Lord Jesus!”
Fr. Richard Roemer, CFR
(re-posted from November 29, 2005)
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