Thursday, December 12, 2024
Bishop Robert Barron
Cycle C
Feast
Advent
2nd wk of Advent
Our Lady of Guadalupe

Bible References

Luke 1:26-38,
Luke 1:39-47

Friends, today we celebrate the great feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. What followed the apparition of Mary at Tepeyac is one of the most astounding chapters in the history of Christian evangelism.

Though Franciscan missionaries had been laboring in Mexico for twenty years, they had made little progress. But within ten years of the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe practically the entire Mexican people, nine million strong, had converted to Christianity. Our Lady of Guadalupe had proved a more effective evangelist than Peter, Paul, St. Patrick, and St. Francis Xavier combined! And with that great national conversion, the Aztec practice of human sacrifice came to an end. She had done battle with fallen spirits and had won a culture-changing victory for the God of love.

The challenge for us who honor her today is to join the same fight. We must announce to our culture today the truth of the God of Israel, the God of Jesus Christ, the God of nonviolence and forgiving love. And we ought, like Our Lady of Guadalupe, to be bearers of Jesus to a world that needs him more than ever.

Gospel Reflections

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Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Bishop Robert Barron

Cycle C

Advent

2nd wk of Advent

Topics

God's love
Pride

Bible References

Matthew 11:28-30

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus offers to free us from the burden of our pride.

What is it that makes our lives heavy and weighed down? Precisely the burden of our own egos, the weight of one’s own self. When I am puffing myself up with my own self-importance, I’m laboring under all that weight. Jesus is saying, “Become a child. Take that weight off your shoulders and put on the weight of my yoke, the yoke of my obedience to the Father.” 

Anthony de Mello proposed the following parable to describe us prideful souls. A group of people sit on a bus that is passing through the most glorious countryside, but they have the shades pulled down on all the windows and are bickering about who gets front seat on the bus. This is the burden of pride: preferring the narrow and stuffy confines of the bus to the beauty that is effortlessly available all around. This, of course, is why Jesus can say, “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” What the Lord proposes is not a freedom from suffering but, what is much more important, a freedom from the self.

Gospel Reflections

Meditate on Daily Gospel Reflections from Bishop Robert Barron

The Passing Of Bible Prophecy Great Hal Lindsey – Generations Changed Forever
https://new.americanprophet.org/the-passing-of-bible-prophecy-great-hal-lindsey-generations-changed-forever/

Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Bishop Robert Barron
Cycle C
Advent
2nd wk of Advent

Bible References

Matthew 18:12-14

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus asks: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?” Well, of course not! No self-respecting shepherd would ever think of doing that. If you were a shepherd, you’d cut your losses. That sheep is probably dead anyway if it wandered far enough away.

But we are to understand that God is like that foolish shepherd. God’s love throws caution to the wind to seek out the lost sheep. We might expect God to be good to those who are good, and kind to those who follow his commandments. Those who don’t, who wander away, are simply lost. God might give them a few minutes, but then they’re on their own.

No, God is like this kooky shepherd. God loves irrationally, exuberantly risking it all in order to find the one who wandered away. What good news: God does not love according to a strict justice on our terms but loves in his own extravagant way.

Gospel Reflections

Meditate on Daily Gospel Reflections from Bishop Robert Barron

THE GIANTS OF THE BIBLE ARE REAL AND STILL ALIVE TODAY -
END TIMES PRODUCTIONS

https://old.bitchute.com/video/lHtqlCt7t2bY/

-- Hopeful Sign of Times: Bible Sales Increasing
https://surgecolumns331790116.wordpress.com/2024/12/07/hopeful-sign-of-times-bible-sales-increasing/

-- Satan Groups at Schools Hoping to Challenge Bible-Themed Programs
https://surgecolumns331790116.wordpress.com/2024/12/07/satan-groups-at-schools-hoping-to-challenge-bible-themed-programs/