30 X 30

Why not start the year off with a decision to pray with Scripture every day for 30 days.

Pray with Scripture 30 minutes a day for 30 days.
This is a practical approach with profound results.

Read the passages listed for the day. Choose one as a focus. Consider it prayerfully for thirty minutes. Answer the questions. Record your responses.
For the list of readings click here.

"In reading the Scripture with Christ, we learn to hear in human words the voice of the Holy Spirit, and we discover the unity of the Bible." Pope Benedict XVI

The Octave of Christmas

Christmas is one of two feasts the Church celebrates for an octave, i.e, 8 days. The other is Easter. Each of these unfathomable mysteries is too great to relegate to only 1 day. Let us celebrate and honor Our Savior, Immanuel, God with us.

Merry Christmas

Father said at Mass that the grace that rests on this feast is the grace for deeper conversion. It is in times of darkness that it is hardest to have hope, yet it precisely there that God is at work. Read the story of how Henry Wadsworth Longfellow came to write the poem that became the lyrics for I Heard the Bells, then listen to the song. Ask the Lord for the grace to believe -- even in the darkness.

From Fear to Freedom

By Louise Edwards

I’ve lived with fear all my life
Believed him bosom friend
Welcomed him into my heart
Time and time again

I turned away; would not believe
In darkness I persisted
Afraid to live; afraid to die
To what I knew existed

He comes with kiss upon my cheek
Like Judas who betrays
I’m blinded by the lies he tells
Caught up in all his ways

Afraid to say ‘I believe’
Fear’d turned my heart to stone
So accustomed to his lying voice
I thought it was my own

“Don’t go against the crowd!” he says
“It’s best to be a pleaser”
“Tell them what they want to hear”
“Life will be much easier”

Then through locked doors Jesus came
With breaths of Liquid Gold
I touched His hands, His feet, His side
And then He said, “Behold.”

“Pay precise attention”
“I’ll tell you what to do”
“You have to get it perfect”
“Or the blame is all on you”

“Come live beyond the doubts”
“A great abundance do I give”
“I did not set you free for this”
“I set you free to live”

At first he seemed convincing
His ways so smooth and slick
But soon the slope got steeper
Sliding backwards pretty quick

“Believe in who you are”
“My beloved and My Bride”
“See Me stripped upon the Cross”
“My arms nailed open wide”

I bowed low on bended knee
Weighed down by fear’s commands
The yoke he laid upon my back
His insurmountable demands

"My Heart’s been pierced for love of you”
“I am Freedom; I am Goodness”
“The reign of sin is ended”
“In mercy and forgiveness”

I become a slave
To the god of fear
I built his strongholds in my heart
While he just laughed and sneered

“In My Name renounce the fear”
“I’m the Truth that sets you free”
“False Evidence Appearing Real”
“Confront it with great faith in Me”

I cried out for a Savior
Who came and set me free
With Cross and quake and veils in two
He pledged His love for me

“In every way I am for you”
“Fear’s just pride in disguise”
“The secret to your freedom is”
“Come with Me and die”

Prison doors became unhinged
Yokes of sin were broken
The serpent’s head was wholly crushed
The gates of Heaven opened

“I promise you’ll know miracles”
“A new covenant of power”
“My promise is for so much more”
”In this My Final Hour”

Though countless saints proclaimed the news
His wounds so blinding white
“The Lamb once slain now lives forever”
“in Resurrection might!”

“So roll the stone from the tomb”
“Your heart is now My Kingdom”
“Where yokes are easy and burdens light”
“And I’ve set you free for freedom”

Amen

Mary, Did you know?

Advent Novena

Hail and blessed be the hour and the moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Savior, Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.