Faith Reflection: Mercy—The Beauty of Our Young
In the upcoming December article for Five Minutes With Francis I mention Sherry Peirce of Church Social Tips who I follow on Twitter. The topic for the article is on blandness and I follow @ChurchSocialTip because of Peirce's enthusiasm for her ministry shines through and that inspires me - she is anything but bland. Since I am following her I have seen her posts for this month. All month, in preparation for our new liturgical year, she has been posting Advent tips for parishes to use for their bulletins and websites. After rereading our 7th grader's essay last night I was struck by how many times Sarah mentions the importance of prayer and she inspired me to use two of Peirce’s Advent tips here. The first is Advent Tip #22 which asks you to think of ways you can share your gifts to glorify Jesus—a perfect meditation for Advent which deepens your prayer life and brings gratitude. The second, Advent Tip #23, encourages people to sign up for a daily Advent reflection. Peirce recommends DynamicCatholic.com/Advent17. This is a good site, and to her recommendation I will add FranciscanMedia.org and WordonFire.org as other online sources to receive daily reflections, either through email or Social Media. May we take advantage of this upcoming season praying and waiting in joyful anticipation.
Way to Announce the Good News Today
by Sarah Buchanan
Here are some ways to announce the good news of Jesus Christ. One way is to tell kids who Jesus is and have them ask their parents to go to mass. Another way is to ask your elders who are not Catholic to come to church with you.
My concern about how people live out their faith is that kids get bullied and that is not how we are supposed to live out our faith. Another concern I have is that people try to hide that they believe in God just to be cool.
I can live my faith and make it better and stronger by praying and going to mass more. I can also give canned food at mass. I can also trust in God more. What the Church can do to help me do this is to remind me to pray.
Lastly, what I do to keep my faith going is I keep praying and believing in God.
As Catholics we know the Saints can help us in our spiritual journey. This Advent I'm going to offer our newly beatified Fr. Solanus Casey as one to consider this year. Now Blessed Solanus, he was a Capuchin Friar serving at Saint Bonaventure Monastery in Detroit, Michigan. I didn’t know much about Bl. Solanus prior to his beatification. As I read more about him one of the things that caught my attention was that he was the porter for his community for many years and was known for his ministry as a spiritual counselor and being of humble service to others. This immediately reminded me of Saint Br. Andre of Montreal, Quebec, who was a spiritual guide as well as a humble porter at Saint Joseph’s Oratory for many years. Even if you don't sign up for the on-line Advent reflections you can call upon these holy men to accompany you as you prepare for Christmas. Bl. Solanus was beatified on November 18, 2017 by Pope Francis.
Thank you. Mrs. Alhadef