17 December 2007

In trial and in sickness, God mysteriously visits us, and if we abandon ourselves to his will, we can experience the power of his love.

- Homily, 2 December 2007
Gathered every Sunday in the Lord’s House, we are consumed by Christ’s love and truth and empowered to bring hope to the world.

This sacrament of initiation, far more than a social ritual or welcome into a particular community, is the initiative of God.

When men and women are drawn away from the Lord’s dwelling place they inevitably wander in a wilderness of individual isolation and social fragmentation.

Teach us, Mary,
to believe, to hope, to love with you;
show us the way that leads to peace,
the way to the Kingdom of Jesus.
You, Star of Hope,
who wait for us anxiously in the everlasting light
of the eternal Homeland,
shine upon us and guide us through daily events,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen!
- Address, 8 December 2007
And it is today, in the present, that our future destiny is being played out. It is our actual conduct in this life that decides our eternal fate. At the end of our days on earth, at the moment of death, we will be evaluated on the basis of our likeness - or lack of it - to the Child who is about to be born in the poor grotto of Bethlehem, because he is the criterion of the measure that God has given to humanity. The Heavenly Father, who expressed his merciful love to us through the birth of his Only-Begotten Son, calls us to follow in his footsteps, making our existence, as he did, a gift of love. And the fruit of love is that fruit which "befits repentance", to which John the Baptist refers while he addresses cutting words to the Pharisees and Sadduccees among the crowds who had come for Baptism.

- Angelus Address, 9 December 2007