If your church offers Vespers with the O Antiphons today through the 24th, it is very much worth your time to go and meditate on the coming of Our Lord.
Forwarded from ᴛʀᴀᴅɪᴛɪᴏɴɪꜱ ᴄᴜꜱᴛᴏᴅᴇꜱ
Today marks the beginning of the "O Antiphons," which are sung before the Magnificat at Vespers from now until Christmas Eve. Each Antiphon addresses Our Lord using distinct titles derived from the prophecies of Isaias and Micheas. These titles, when their initial letters are read in reverse, form an acrostic for the Latin phrase "Ero Cras," which translates to "Tomorrow I come."
St. Gianna Molla, pray for us
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/257315/jessica-hanna-devout-catholic-mother-who-chose-life-amid-cancer-battle-dies
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/257315/jessica-hanna-devout-catholic-mother-who-chose-life-amid-cancer-battle-dies
Catholic News Agency
Jessica Hanna, Catholic mother who chose life amid cancer battle, dies
“Be sure to remember — with every Good Friday comes an Easter Sunday,” the mother of four pointed out. “With death comes resurrection — Christ made it so.”
The transformation which the Apostles had undergone is shown also in their sanctifying influence, in the transport of intense fervor which they communicated to the first Christians. As the Acts show, the life of the infant Church was a life of marvelous sanctity; “the multitude of the believers had but one heart and one soul”; they had all things in common, they sold their goods and brought the price of them to the Apostles that they might distribute to each according to his needs. They met together every day to pray, to hear the preaching of the Apostles, and to celebrate the Eucharist. They were often seen assembled together in prayer, and men wondered to see the charity that reigned among them. “By this,” our Lord had said, “shall all men know that you are my disciples.”
Bossuet has given an admirable description of the fervor of the first Christians, in his third sermon for the feast of Pentecost: “They are strong in the face of peril, but they are tender in the love of their brethren; the almighty Spirit who guides them well knows the secret of reconciling the most opposite tensions.... He gives them a heart of flesh... made tender by charity... and He makes them hard as iron or steel in the face of peril.... He strengthens and He softens, but in a manner all His own. For these are the same hearts of the disciples, which seem as diamonds in their invincible firmness, and which yet become human hearts and hearts of flesh by brotherly love. This is the effect of the heavenly fire that rests upon them this day. It has softened the hearts of the faithful, it has, so to speak, melted them into one…”
-The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life, by Rev. Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange
Bossuet has given an admirable description of the fervor of the first Christians, in his third sermon for the feast of Pentecost: “They are strong in the face of peril, but they are tender in the love of their brethren; the almighty Spirit who guides them well knows the secret of reconciling the most opposite tensions.... He gives them a heart of flesh... made tender by charity... and He makes them hard as iron or steel in the face of peril.... He strengthens and He softens, but in a manner all His own. For these are the same hearts of the disciples, which seem as diamonds in their invincible firmness, and which yet become human hearts and hearts of flesh by brotherly love. This is the effect of the heavenly fire that rests upon them this day. It has softened the hearts of the faithful, it has, so to speak, melted them into one…”
-The Three Conversions in the Spiritual Life, by Rev. Reginald Garrigou-LaGrange