Living Sacrifice: Growing in Faith Through Scripture and the Mass

Jesus Christ is the Mediator between God and humanity, yet God delights in the mediation of angels, men and women in His plan of salvation.  The Blessed Virgin Mary, as Mediatrix, plays a special role in bringing the grace of God into our lives. 

We are called to imitate the Holy Family in the virtues of family life.  The virtue of obedience helps us to listen to the word of God and submit freely to it as we bear great fruit in Christ.

In the Incarnation God tears open the veil and reveals the unseen world.  May we worship and adore Him, and then make Him known to all who long to see Him.

In the smallest things of life we often find great value.  Jesus comes to the Little Town of Bethlehem, and is found in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  May we find Him in the small things, and then, simply find Him everywhere.

God calls us to rejoice and even sing because Christmas is near.  Even in the darkest moments of life, we can find God drawing near and giving us hope and healing.  "Rejoice in the Lord always," says St. Paul, "I shall say it again: Rejoice!"

Growth in the spiritual life requires an engagement and a struggle in which God gains the victory for us and brings us great freedom and joy.  We receive the peace of Christ in Christmas when we strive for holiness in the Advent Season.

Advent is Latin for coming or arrival.  Jesus comes to us in the past in Bethlehem, in the future at His Second Coming, and He also comes to us each day in many different and amazing ways.  Are we ready for His coming?

Jesus Christ is Lord, King of the Universe.  Is He also your king?

God reveals to us the great truth that He is an eternal exchange of love, and that He is calling each and every one of us to share in His divine life. 

"Attention" writes Simone Weil, "is the rarest and purest form of generosity."  Our readings this weekend focus on the attention that leads to the generosity of love, what we are called to emulate as we follow Christ.

God creates us with the capacity to know and welcome Him into our lives.  When He commands us to love Him and our neighbor it is because He desires to be in communion with us and makes us capable of doing so.

No matter what our physical or outside constraints may be, God is able to set us free inside through faith, hope and love.  These Theological Virtues help us to live and love in God.

Christ allows us to unite our sufferings to His passion so that we can cooperate with His work of redeeming the world and share in the glory of God.

Jesus looks upon us with love and mercy and allows us to respond to His grace as disciples and to bear fruit.

In St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body we discover the "nuptial meaning of the body," that we were created for communion and in that beautiful reality we image the blessed Trinity.

God gathers us together to fill us with His Spirit and sends us out to gather the scattered children of God.

Christ calls St. Peter, and all of us, to see the cross from God's perspective.  

Jesus, the Messiah, comes to restore and renew us in His divine love and grace.  

The heart is the place of encounter between God and humanity.  Christ calls us to purify our hearts and to always be ready for the encounter with God.

"The flesh is the very condition on which our salvation hinges" (Tertullian).

"Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you."

Jesus gives us His own body and blood as food for the journey on our pilgrimage home to God.

We are called to a dialogue with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and we should be ready to listen to what He has to say.

In the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, Jesus anticipates the future institution of the Eucharist, roots the Eucharist in the past and gives us grace in the present moment.  

Jesus, our true Shepherd, leads us through the dark valley to find new and eternal life in God.