M
MariaChristi
Guest
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
This coming Sunday will be the First Sunday in Advent. Advent has always been for me a particularly “Marian Season” of the Liturgical Year. Mary was the first to “wait” in beautiful and faithful expectancy for the coming of Jesus.
Tomorrow is a little known Feast of hers, which is a good prelude to Advent. Perhaps some of you have heard of or read the book Our Lady of Kibeho: Mary Speaks to the World from the Heart of Africa This is an approved apparition which took place 15 years before the genocide in Rwanda and is told by one of the survivors of that genocide.
God willing, I will post more on Our Lady of Kibeho tomorrow on her Feast, but the reason I think it is a good prelude to Advent is because it resembles in some ways the messages Mary gave St. Bernadette and the children at Fatima about penance and reparation for the sins of the world. Too many people have forgotten that Advent is a penitential season, even while we anticipate the joy of Christ’s coming. Our “getting ready” needs to include spiritual preparation and renewal. There is in all of us a great need to seek the Light and Wisdom of the Holy Spirit to know how best to cooperate with His graces to purify our souls, and teach us to love God and one another as we ought.
Many Christians (Catholics included), it seems to me, have become more worldly-minded and caught up in a false spirit of the “holidays”, shopping and busy about many things. Where are the times of silence for prayer and reflection? Where are serious plans to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ, not only at Christmas, but at His Final Coming? I pray not only for myself but for all God’s children to make this Advent a season truly to honor Him through Mary.
This coming Sunday will be the First Sunday in Advent. Advent has always been for me a particularly “Marian Season” of the Liturgical Year. Mary was the first to “wait” in beautiful and faithful expectancy for the coming of Jesus.
Tomorrow is a little known Feast of hers, which is a good prelude to Advent. Perhaps some of you have heard of or read the book Our Lady of Kibeho: Mary Speaks to the World from the Heart of Africa This is an approved apparition which took place 15 years before the genocide in Rwanda and is told by one of the survivors of that genocide.
God willing, I will post more on Our Lady of Kibeho tomorrow on her Feast, but the reason I think it is a good prelude to Advent is because it resembles in some ways the messages Mary gave St. Bernadette and the children at Fatima about penance and reparation for the sins of the world. Too many people have forgotten that Advent is a penitential season, even while we anticipate the joy of Christ’s coming. Our “getting ready” needs to include spiritual preparation and renewal. There is in all of us a great need to seek the Light and Wisdom of the Holy Spirit to know how best to cooperate with His graces to purify our souls, and teach us to love God and one another as we ought.
Many Christians (Catholics included), it seems to me, have become more worldly-minded and caught up in a false spirit of the “holidays”, shopping and busy about many things. Where are the times of silence for prayer and reflection? Where are serious plans to prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ, not only at Christmas, but at His Final Coming? I pray not only for myself but for all God’s children to make this Advent a season truly to honor Him through Mary.