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Fourth Sunday of Advent, December 19, 2004
"A" Readings:
Isa. 7:10-14 • Rom. 1:1-7 • Matt. 1:18-24
• Advent Homily:
"Mary and Joseph Prepare for Christmas" by Rev. Jeffrey Lawrence
| The early missionaries in Mexico started the custom of bringing a great number
of beautiful flowers to the crib of Christ. One Christmas, the road leading to
the village church was filled with hundreds of men, women and children, each
carrying magnificent flowers as a token of love for the newborn Babe in the
manger. ...
• Advent Reflection:
"Holy Mary and the Death of Sin" by Carl E. Olson |
The final words of the Hail Mary are filled with comfort, but also with a
reminder of our mortality and the inevitable end to our earthly lives: "Pray for
us sinners now and at the hour of our death, Amen." ...
•
"Fulton Sheen on Advent and the Christmas Mystery" | Through the Year with Fulton Sheen
is Sheen at his best--the master storyteller, preacher, and faithful servant of Christ--with a word
of encouragement, counsel, and direction for each day of the year. With characteristic insight and
eloquence, he penetrates to the heart of the Christian life with practical reflections on love,
holiness, spiritual power, miracles, and Christ-like living. ...
•
"Advent with Jean Daniélou" by Carl E. Olson | Fr. Jean Daniélou's
The Advent of Salvation, originally published simply as Advent in 1950, may be the
best $3.00 purchase I've ever made. The out-of-print book is a classic work on the meaning of Advent.
Here are a few of Daniélou's thoughts about this wonderful but often overlooked season. ...
• "The Advent Wreath",
an excerpt from Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany in the Domestic Church by by Peter & Catherine Fournier
| Every season of Advent is a new
reminder of the promise of eternity. (CCC 1020 - 1029) Thus, Advent wreaths are made of evergreens
to symbolize God's "everlastingness" and our immortality. (Purple is the liturgical color for Advent,
green in the wreath symbolizes hope and new life.) Four candles--three purple or violet that represent
penance, sorrow, and longing expectation and one rose or pink that represents the hope and coming joy--are
used to represent the four weeks of Advent. ...
• Selected
Ignatius Press books and music for Advent and Christmas. Books
for the entire family, including Fiona French's beautifully illustrated
Bethlehem, books by theologian John Saward, and classic Catholic Christmas
carols. ...
Pages for previous weeks of Advent:
- First week of Advent
- Second week of Advent
- Third week of Advent
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Dogma And Preaching: Applying Christian Doctrine to
Daily Life (2nd Ed)
by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger
This volume is an unabridged edition of Dogma and Preaching, a work that appeared in a much-reduced form in English, in 1985. The new book contains twice as much material as first
English edition. "Dogma", for many people, is a bad word. For the well-informed believer, it shouldn't be. Dogmas are truths revealed by God, which should enlighten the minds,
guide the choices, and gladden the hearts of Jesus' disciples, including pastors, deacons, and lay teachers. But, as Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), notes in the foreword
to this book, "The path from dogma to proclamation or preaching has become very troublesome." Finding ways to relate the content of the Church's dogmas to everyday life can be
challenging for today's preachers and teachers. Some people find the task so daunting that they leave dogma out. As a result, they wind up presenting something other than the
Church's faith and speak in their own name, offering perhaps unwittingly merely their own, subjective ideas, rather than the Word of God. In Dogma and Preaching, the theologian
and priest Joseph Ratzinger provides (1) a theory of preaching for today; (2) application of this theory to some themes for preaching drawn from the Church's dogmas; (3) meditations
and sermons based on the liturgical year and the communion of saints; and (4) some thoughts regarding the decade after the Second Vatican and Christianity's seeming irrelevance.
Ratzinger insists that sound preaching should rest on three pillars... Read more!
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