CHRISTMAS TREE

Too good to miss!

 

Pictured above is our friary Christmas tree here at Our Lady of the Angels Franciscan Community;  it is close to 15 feet tall as it stretches up to our second floor room in the friary.  What is remarkable is that it has easily over 200 angels on it.  Enjoy!   We hope that you have a Blessed Christmas season -- Christmas lasts until January 9th this year.   We are praying for you!    (the friars)

MERRY CHRISTMAS

(our friary chapel in Christmas 2011 vesture)

 

from your Ava friars:  MERRY CHRISTMAS!

 

What shall we wish you for Christmas? 

 

"We think the best Christmas wish is that some holy and lovely thought may come into your life with your Christmas celebration, make its home with you and stay to strengthen you and help you ....live as followers of this Child of Bethlehem!  Jesus came and made a difference in the world and asks only that we do the same!"   

 

Merry Christmas and a Grace-filled and Healthy New Year! 

AN ADVENT REFLECTION

 

 

 

This reflection is based on the following Advent scripture: JOHN 1: 19-20

    

     And this is the testimony of John.  When the Jews from Jerusalm sent priests and Levites to ask him: "Who are you?"  John admitted and did not deny it, but admitted:  "I am not the Messiah."

 

THE LITTLE BLUE BOOK for Advent/Christmas Seasons 2011-2012 offers this reflection about prayer based on that quote;  it appears as one of the selections for Dec. 14, 2011; the REFLECTION:

 

John is very good at saying who he is and what he is not.   He is not the Messiah.

 

Sometimes I forget and act as though I am the Messiah.   Especially when I pray.  Perhaps I try to be sure to include everyone in my prayer.   I do this sincerely because I care about them and I want to help. 

 

Perhaps my prayer gets busy and cluttered because I'm trying to remember to mention all the intentions and all the people for whom I've promised to pray.  It's as though God wouldn't be able to remember someone, if I didn't specifically take care of it.

 

Perhaps I feel I have all these people depending on me and I work very hard to include them in my prayer.

 

In all these ways, I am acting as if I am the Messiah.  It all depends on me.  When I do this, I have things backwards.  God is God and I am God's child.  God handles things as God, and I handle things as God's child.  I can simply relax and talk to God.

AN ADVENT PRAYER REFLECTION

REFLECTION FOR ADVENT

 

The reading below appears for a Morning Prayer in Advent; it's from the People's Companion to the Breviary, p. 256.   This book is published by the Carmelite sisters in Indianapolis.  The quote comes from Sr. Teresa Boersig, OCD, in "Christmas Reverie":

 

"Our first home was in the womb of our earthly mother, but the womb of God is our "forever" home … In the womb of God, our Eternal Mother, we can indeed enter and find again the source of our being, the font of life-giving waters, the life of our life. God is pregnant with us -- holding us, nourishing us, delighting in us, bringing us into birth at each new moment -- yet enveloping and embracing us forever in the fold of this Holy Womb. It is our refuge, our place of repose, our home."

MARY as a MODEL of PRAYER

(image of Mary and the Christ Child at Assumption Abbey)

 

MARY AS A PRAYER MODEL

 

In these days between the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (patroness of the U.S.A.) and the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (patroness of all the Americas), we pause to reflect upon what Mary can teach us, in the example of her life, about prayer.   This quote appears in the work, "Mary in Luke's Gospel", authored by Joseph Martos and Richard Rohr, OFM. 

 

"Mary is therefore the model of prayer for all Christians.  Prayer is getting in touch with reality, letting it speak to us, and incarnating the word which comes to us.   We let it happen in our lives.  Saying yes to God in prayer ...means changing our lives in accordance with what we have heard.  It means engaging that word with our whole being, and letting it alter our existence.  For prayer is a dialogue between life and life, between divine life and human life, between the life of the Spirit and the life of the flesh.  Unless we enflesh the word of God and let it become incarnate in us, it cannot become real in the world."