Welcome to Advent 2011! Our Advent resources this year include the Advent retreat booklet based on the Spiritual Exercises in everyday life. Here on dotMagis each Monday, you’ll find brief reflections to jump-start your week. Please share your retreat experience with others here throughout the week in the comments.
The First Week of Advent: Journeying Toward an Encounter with the Lord Who ComesPetition: Ask for the grace of entering into the spirit of Advent, a time of hope, of listening to the Word, of a universal call to spread the Good News.
It always takes me by surprise that when the gates of holiness open, however briefly, they usually reveal not some distant castle in the sky but our own backyard. Holy gates invite us to discover God right here.
—Excerpted from 2012: A Book of Grace-Filled Days by Margaret Silf
Luke 10:21-24
“…you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have reveled them to infants…. Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.â€
The centurion came to Jesus and appealed to him to heal his servant. The two blind men followed Jesus and pleaded with him to heal them. Peter, Andrew, James and John left behind their nets and followed Jesus. All these people had eyes to see and ears to hear who Jesus was. They had faith; faith that led to pursuing Jesus and following Him.
This Advent I desire to encounter Jesus afresh as an infant. In this season of waiting and expectation, I pray for eyes to see and ears to hear as those who encountered and followed Jesus in the flesh. May I be attentive and listen. May my encounter with Jesus this Advent led to deeper faith and commitment to follow Him.
I am so excited about Advent this year, letting Jesus come to me more deeply. My friend gave me some advice – Be where your feet are. I find that I have to keep reminding my self to be “present” to be a present for someone or to receive the present that Christ is offering in the moment.
” Be where your feet are.” Thanks Mary Ann. I really like that. A really concrete twist on being present.
In today’s readings of scripture I read the words ‘how beautiful the feet of those who brings good news’ i thought about how many people have done this for me. Today I thought about the words and what I could do for someone else to bring the good news to them. I am doing the online advent retreat on the creighton ministery website and i thought of someone who could find it very useful. I did not know how to approach the subject so I just said that I usually go to this website to help me when the world and all its problems weight heavily on me. I hope she will take the opportunity to browse through it and maybe find something or read something which might appeal to her spirit because I know she is troubled at this time. Just as the post above says, offer his presence to other persons….
Reading today’s Gospel, Matt 8:5-13, I was moved by Jesus’ offer to come and heal the servant himself – touched by his personal caring for the servant. And he responded without evident hesitation even though, presumably, neither the centurion nor the servant was Jews or followers of Jesus – they were aliens, pagans. I am also pleased to learn that Jesus was “astonished†at the soldier’s faith. Jesus could be surprised – he could react as any other person. He was a “real†person and so I can identify with him person to person and so act as he did – care for strangers. I can have Jesus presence any time by following Jesus’ model, acting as scripture tells me he did/would act. Jesus was not only “God†whose interest and abilities would so far surpass mine that I could not even hope to be him – offer his presence – to other persons, or receive his presence in others.
I like the idea of Jesus being surprised. Thanks for giving me something to think about, Patrick.