Tag: Advent

God is With Us

Whenever our life is altered by the presence of an important person, a significant event, or something of considerable value, every aspect of our day is also affected. Although I am not young anymore, I still remember how, when I was just six or...

You Will See My Glory

Our opening prayer for the Third Sunday of Advent provides us with insight that something big is coming: “O God, who see how your people faithfully await the feast of the Lord’s Nativity, enable us, we pray, to attain the joys of so...

Growing Closer to God

Once upon a time there was a fabulously wealthy king who also happened to be a very good man. He truly desired to grow closer to God—but he also wanted to remain rich and comfortable. “After all,” he thought, “I am a king, so I deserve a life of...

God’s Brand of Happiness

The old name given to the third Sunday of Advent is “Gaudete.” It is imperative mode, second person plural of the Latin verb “gaudeo, gaudes, gavisus sum, gaudere.” It is an order similar to the orders that we give each other out of love or...

Are We Rooted in the Lord?

As it has been the custom for many years now, the Maltese Capuchin Province has organized the Advent retreat. This venue chosen for this year’s retreat was the Carmelite Retreat House of Lunzjata (The Annunciation). This special retreat house is...

The Advent Season with Pope Francis

Advent, which is the period of practically four Sundays and weeks before Christmas, from the Latin word adventus that means ‘coming’, concentrates on Jesus’ double coming to our world. The first one occurred in the past, two millennia ago...

Renewing our Commitment to Christ

Once there was a man who considered himself a bitter enemy of religion.  He had been raised as a Christian, and was well-versed in the Bible; however, in his college years he decided that religion was for hypocrites and weaklings. He...

God’s Divine Dare

What do you think about our first reading from the Prophet Isaiah (11:1-10)? We might be so used to the Bible’s flowery way of talking, even to the exaggerations scattered here and there throughout this wonderful, divinely inspired book that we...