ADVENT

  ADVENT : THE SAVIOR PREPARES TO COME. THE WORLD PREPARES TO RECEIVE HIM.     

"I will go and tell the world: I will go seek my bride and take upon myself her weariness and labors in which she suffers so; and that she may have life, I will die for her, and lifting her out of that deep, I will restore her to you”        

                                       "...the Lover becomes like the one he loves"      

 "....for He would make himself wholly like them, and He would come to them and dwell with them; and God would be man and man would be God, and He would walk with them and eat and drink with them; and He himself would be with them continually until the consummation of this world" (St John of the Cross).

"IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD.” (John 1:1)

AND MARY ANSWERED,

"BEHOLD! I AM THE DOULY (BOND-SLAVE) OF THE LORD. LET IT BE DONE UNTO ME ACCORDING TO YOUR WORD." (Luke1:38)

“AND THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US." (John 1:14)

We journey together again through Advent. The greatest love story of all time is being re-told. A mystical door is opening from Heaven to inflame earth in the "burning Furnace of Love" that is God's passionate Love affair with His people. He is madly in love with our soul and His love is revealed in and through "The Word." 

We search and dig and pray to try to hear and understand what this "Word" is saying to us. His language is sometimes beyond us because we are finite. He is Infinite. He is totally Other. We are totally dependent on Him.  

                                             "When God loves us, He is loving Himself in us."

Inherent in these words is a staggering truth... that if God loves Himself in us, then He must be Present within us. 

                                   

                                      How to fathom such a profound and eternal meaning?

In Sacred Scripture, The Word speaks, so we go there to "sit at His feet" to hear His Voice. 

                                   

And to hear Our Father's response.

Jesus, The Word, spoke in the darkness of the stable of His Birth. We sit at the mouth of that cave and we look inside. We see His Poverty. In this, we hear Him inviting us to let go of attachments that make our hands stick to things that can do damage to our souls. "Attachments can be dangerous because they prevent us from relying on faith. And they can ultimately make us prey to the devil. Detachment is non-possessiveness and opens a soul-space for God to fill it with poverty of spirit."

Like Mary, the Douly of the Lord, we say our own YES to that gift of poverty.

And the Father sees His Son's Poverty growing within us. God the Father is seeing and loving in us something of what He saw and loved in His Son. As He gazes on us, we hear His delight with our small gift and He proclaims to all the hosts of Heaven: 

                  "BEHOLD! MY BELOVED... IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED." (Mt 3 :17)

                    

During His life on earth, we see Jesus, Savior, Son, as Humility enfleshed. He is the Doulos, the Bondslave of God. Everything He said and did and had, came from His Father. In Matthew 3:6, John is baptising many in the waters of the Jordan. To be submerged in the waters was an external marker for an interior confession of sin and a desire to repent. Jesus, Son of God, Redeemer before time began, approaches John to ask to be baptised. In that moment, He, the Innocent One, not only aligned Himself with my sins, He was expressing ownership of them. For all of us. In full view of the great number of sinners waiting to confess and to repent, He, the Christ, waited in line and was submerged in our place. 

And when the Savior came out from the waters, the Voice of God was heard:

                       "BEHOLD! THIS IS MY BELOVED... IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED."

When we wait in line to confess our sins and our spiritual pride tempts us with a hundred reasons to abandon such a place of humiliations, we may be given the grace to attend to another whisper: God can use even my sins for the salvation of my soul. But more, much more, we can offer our humiliation to God for the soul of another, one who never prays and who will not do penance, to be brought back to God through my offering. 

 And at the words of absolution, the Father sees more of His Son in us and we hear His delight:

                                 

                       "BEHOLD! MY BELOVED... IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED." 

It was a shocking and terrifying and electric moment when Jesus, Lord raised his friend Lazarus from the dead. The scorching sun must have blazed on that scene among the caves of tombs. And into that stunned silence, Christ Jesus walked to the entrance of the tomb. Suddenly, He raised His hands and arms high into the air. His head was thrown back and His eyes stared up toward Heaven. And then He gave a great shout that must have rocked the silent crowd. 

"Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I know that you always hear me but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me." (John 11:38-44)

Jesus was addressing His Father and His Voice was filled with holy joy.

In deeply challenging circumstances, when even friends don't fully stand by us, when all that should be just isn't, do we ever throw our hands and arms high in the air and shout a great shout of utter holy joy in the midst of our storm: Father, Thank you. I know that you always hear me?

And the Father's Gaze sees the faith and holy joy of His Son alive in our soul, and He replies:

                                        

                          "BEHOLD! MY BELOVED... IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED." 

Our fallen human nature is being pursued by Love in every passage and event in Sacred Scripture. The Word is speaking Himself into life in, through and with us. Christ is the Father's "entire Locution and Response, given to us as Master, Brother, Companion, Ransom, Reward." (St John of the Cross)

This is never more miraculous and powerful and uncontained than at that moment when we leave our seats to walk forward to the Altar where the Unbloodied Sacrifice has been offered to the Father at the hands of the priest. On our way up the aisle, we offer ourselves: all that we were, all that we are, all that we have, all that we will be.  

                                

We receive the Word made Flesh, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

To give Himself to us, the Son had to be totally annihilated so that we can be totally filled with God. The Breath of the Father, through the Spirit, breathes in the Son, now actually and Physically Present on our tongue or in our hand. We are breathing the Breath that empowers us to communicate with God and the Hearts of the Trinity are now beating in our own. 

           

AS HE GAZES ON AND IN US, THE FATHER CAN NOW PROCLAIM IN FULLNESS TO ALL OF HEAVEN:

                              "BEHOLD! MY BELOVED... IN WHOM I AM WELL PLEASED." 

                                                      And the Word speaks into our depths...

                                                   "DON'T CLING TO ME... GO AND TELL" (John 20:17).

“WHEN GOD LOVES US HE IS LOVING HIMSELF IN US. HE THUS MAKES US HIS EQUAL" (St. John of the Cross).

CLOSING MESSAGE - LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS 2024

 

"LET US SAVE, ABOVE ALL, THE SOULS OF PRIESTS.

WE PRAY , WE SUFFER FOR THEM.

AND ON THE LAST DAY, JESUS WILL BE GRATEFUL."

        (Saint Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, Patroness of the Lay Fast For Priests)                

Under that direction of our Saint Therese, we further learn from another greatly loved Saint, John Paul II:

                                  How can we "pray and suffer" for other?

                                                    He guides us....

                                    "PRAYER UNITED WITH SACRIFICE
                    IS THE MOST POWERFUL FORCE IN HUMAN HISTORY."

Our "prayer" and our "suffering" have met today in our nineteenth Lay Fast for Priests and our Global Sacrifice has been a "most powerful force,"  raised by millions all across the world for God's Ipse Christus. 

Today, the Spirit of God, "hovering" (Gen. 1) over the face of the earth has breathed His Love into souls from across the Globe. People from 186 countries have in turn breathed His love out into a prayer for all priests, all who were, who are and who are yet to be ordained.

In every one of these countries, 93% of the entire world,  millions of souls have raised sacrificial 

prayer to God for priests who forgive us in Jesus' Name; who consecrate the Bread and Wine and give us Christ Himself in the Most Holy Eucharist; priests whose hands anoint us when we are at last called Home and whose voice will walk us into Eternity.

In one of the poorest countries in Africa, an entire village fasted from food and water today for all priests. 

We join those beloved children of God in the prayer of St Therese :

"O Jesus, for the priest who baptised me;

the priests who have absolved me from my sins;

the priests at whose Masses I have assisted and

who have given me Your Body and Blood in Holy Communion".

This day, a grandmother, her daughter and son-in-law , four sons and grandsons fasted in their country where, yesterday, priests were dragged from Altars and those who were attending Mass were made to leave the Churches at gunpoint. 

We pray with St Therese :

"O Jesus, for your priests labouring at home or abroad in distant mission fields;

for your tempted priests; for your lonely and desolate priests..."

With that grandmother, all of us prayed and suffered for those priests this day.

The Bishop who invited his entire Diocese to fast with us today...

"O Jesus, I pray for your faithful and fervent priests...

keep them all close to your heart and bless them abundantly

in time and in eternity." (St Therese)

We fasted for all of them this day. 

Therese teaches us that "Love, because it is Eternal, embraces every time and space."

We can therefore raise our prayer and sacrifice for all priests, those who live today, those who were, those who are yet to be.

In a country where poverty and corruption are life-threatening, a mother joined the Fast but she alone in the family could fast for priests "because the children need the food". This is a country where two priests were murdered yesterday.

"O Jesus, for your young priests; for your dying priests;

for the souls of your priests in Purgatory."

 We suffered in our Fast for all of them this day.

For the quiet priests who live and give and are faith-filled and suffer and pray and are obedient and offer sacrifice in an anonymity that resembles the mysticism  of the ordinariness of the 30 years of their High Priest in Nazareth. 

THE WORLD OF FAST-ERS PRAYED AND SUFFERED FOR YOU THIS DAY. 

We conclude our prayer and suffering for all priests in union with St Therese as she prays: :

“O Almighty Eternal God, Look upon the Face of Thy Christ, and for the love of Him,

Who is the Eternal High Priest, have pity on Thy priests.

Remember, O most compassionate God, that they are but weak and frail human beings.

Stir up in them the grace of their vocation which is in them

by the imposition of the Bishop’s hands.

Keep them close to Thee, lest the enemy prevail against them,

so that they may never do anything in the slightest degree

unworthy of their sublime vocation..."

WILL YOU PRAY FOR GOD'S IPSE CHRISTUS AGAIN AS ONE BODY IN HIM FOR THE 20TH GLOBAL LAY FAST FOR PRIESTS ON THE 18th OF OCTOBER, 2025?

May it please our loving God that we will all unite again to pray and suffer together for all priests, for their protection, their faith, their hope, and above all, for their love. 

"THE PRIESTHOOD IS THE LOVE OF THE HEART OF JESUS.

WHEN YOU SEE A PRIEST, THINK OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST."

(St John Vianney, patron Saint of Priests)

 IN CHRIST'S LOVING HEART,

Anna Rae-Kelly OCDS