The First Sunday of Advent

"Advent, like its cousin, Lent, is a season for prayer and reformation of our hearts.  Since it comes at winter time, fire is a fitting sign to help us celebrate Advent.  If Christ is to come more fully into our lives this Christmas, if God is to become really incarnate for us, then fire will have to be present in our prayer. Our worship and devotion will have to stoke the kind of fire in our souls that can truly change our hearts.  Ours is a great responsibility not to waste this Advent time" (Edward Hays)

I smiled when I read this quote because of how cold the church will be this Advent.  It will be a physical reminder for us, to stoke that inner fire.  The temptation that hits us every year is to go right to Christmas. Have plans made, the gifts bought, so that Christmas isn't a monstrous holiday.  Christmas music hits the radio waves and we are supposed to be all holly jolly.  Many people transform Thanksgiving into preparation for black Friday.  The meal with the family becomes a carbo load for the next day.

This year I invite you to approach Advent through the Old Testament.  Imagine these few weeks a a people awaiting God's promise.  Pray as though you are awaiting Christ to come into your life, so that you can experience His birth, His presence in your life in a new way.  We have Christ, we have the truth of His resurrection, but before Christmas the chosen people were waiting.  Waiting expectantly.  This is the heart of Advent.  Perhaps the presence of Christ in your life has appeared to diminish, or there are worries that you have not yet laid at His feet.  Advent is a great time to reflect on the patience of God's people, waiting for their Savior.

If you are looking for suggestions on how to go about this, perhaps look to the book of Isaiah for Advent.  Reflect on chapters 40, 42, 43, and 60.  Take a chapter and break it up during the week.  If you don't think you can do something like that use any of the many Advent resources out there, we gave three at mass on November 24th. The point is to make Advent a time of prayer and preparation.  To stoke the fire, to desire Christ in your life in a new way.  Gifts are nice, food is wonderful, but if you don't prepare for Christmas spiritually it's just a nice day.  Christ is the reality of hope.

"Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man.  Advent's intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child.  This is a healing memory; it brings hope.  The purpose of the Church's year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart's memory so it can discern the star of hope...It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope."  (Cardinal Ratzinger, "Seek That Which is Above")

 - Fr. Benjamin Green

The Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time

"Do nothing out of self ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others" (Phil 2:3-4)

Seminary was an interesting place.  I guess it's to be expected when you are in a group of more than 150 characters.  I noticed early on there was something that could really set people off; sitting in their spot.  We had mass every morning, and after a few weeks guys settled into a routine, they had a place they gravitated to, the same for evening prayer.  If you took someone's spot, you got the sighs, the glares, even the guys that would sit uncomfortably close so that you knew you were on their territory.  I was a bane to some of them because I bounced all over the place.  I didn't really understand what the big deal was until they changed the crucifix in St. Bernard's Chapel.  It was like someone had come and changed my room

There is something comfortable about having a spot, having a routine, being in familiar territory.  The parish mission is coming up, November 19, 20 and 21.  I'd like to ask you to brace yourselves, not only to brace yourselves, but to embrace the inconvenience.  It's my great hope that the parish will be packed.  I hope there are people from all over the diocese that get to share in the joy of having a guru of the spiritual life share his knowledge.  With all these unfamiliar faces there is going to be an adjustment.  Somebody will be in your spot.

Take the opportunity to sacrifice for our guests, make sure they get a seat, help them navigate our campus, generally be a friendly face to those that join us.  I don't want you to be scared off when I say there will be a crowd.  This is your parish, this is our Parish Mission.  You should be there.  Just remember that they are in even more unfamiliar territory than your, and your response makes a lasting impression.  Hospitality is the first pillar of stewardship for a reason.

"Do not forget to show hospitality for strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it." (Heb 13:2)

November Stewardship

Gratitude forms the core of a steward's life.

As we gather together, we thank God for all the remarkable gifts of life
and for the privilege to share them with all those whose lives we touch.

"I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings."

Celebrate 30 Years of Our Adoration Chapel.

November 3, 2013: All Parishioners are invited to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Blessed Sacrament's Adoration Chapel. We were the first Parish in the Diocese of Wichita to offer Perpetual Adoration.  

Solemn Holy Hour begins at 3PM in the Church.

Reception begins at 4PM in Bishops Hall.