Schedule //

• 7:00  Practical Talk 
  • Basement Cafe
• 7:20  Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament
  • Personal Prayer 
  • Priest Available for Confession
• 7:50 Meditation (Fr. Juan Diego)
• 8:20 Personal Prayer (on your own, see below)
  • Examination of Conscience
  • Spiritual Reading
  • Points for Prayer
• 8:55  Benediction
• 9:00  Get Together in Basement Cafe
  • Refreshments

Examination of Conscience // December

Act of the presence of God

1. Is my life as a Christian marked by the cheerful and sporting spirit proper to a child of God? Do I have the sense of being engaged in my Father’s concerns? Or on the contrary, do I see my life as a series of obligations and limitations which I have no choice but to obey?
2. Do I realize that God is always at my side, and that he loves me more than all the fathers and mothers of this world love their children?
3. Do I see God’s providence in everything that happens to me, realizing that it works for the good since it comes from my Father God?
4. Is my life marked by the depth and serenity proper to a child of God? Do I allow myself to be absorbed by external events that hinder my interior life?
5. Do I work seriously, aware of being in God’s presence? Am I easily distracted or irresponsible in my work?
6. Am I determined to employ the means needed to remember the presence of God throughout the day? Do I offer up my work?
7. Do I exercise restraint over my sight and imagination? Am I quick to flee from occasions of sin? Do I seek out the help of my guardian angel throughout the day?
8. Do I strive to find and love our Lord in the ordinary events of each day? Or rather am I waiting for big events to do so, which may never arise?
9. Is the good of my family my principal concern? Do I allow my work, recreation or social life to rob my family of my time and affection?
10. Do I show my love for my spouse in small details of love and understanding? Am I doing what I can to make my spouse’s work easier? Do I foster unity at home?
11. Do I spend time with my children in order to get to know the needs of each one and help them more effectively? Do I respect their legitimate freedom? Am I praying for them?
12. Do I realize that sanctity is a life-long effort that requires constant growth? Do I foster my hope to become a saint with God’s grace? Do I fall prey to discouragement when my weaknesses become more apparent?
13. Am I grateful that God continues to seek me out despite my mistakes, and that the Church continues offering me the means I need to go forward?

Act of contrition

Spiritual Reading //

Spiritual reading (Homily Benedict XVI, Feast Immaculate Conception, 2008)

But now we must ask ourselves:  What does “Mary, the Immaculate” mean? Does this title have something to tell us? Today, the liturgy illuminates the content of these words for us in two great images.

The second image is much more difficult and obscure. This metaphor from the Book of Genesis speaks to us from a great historical distance and can only be explained with difficulty; only in the course of history has it been possible to develop a deeper understanding of what it refers to.

It was foretold that the struggle between humanity and the serpent, that is, between man and the forces of evil and death, would continue throughout history.

It was also foretold, however, that the “offspring” of a woman would one day triumph and would crush the head of the serpent to death; it was foretold that the offspring of the woman – and in this offspring the woman and the mother herself – would be victorious and that thus, through man, God would triumph.

What picture does this passage show us? The human being does not trust God. Tempted by the serpent, he harbors the suspicion that in the end, God takes something away from his life, that God is a rival who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast him aside; in brief, that only in this way can we fully achieve our freedom.

The human being lives in the suspicion that God’s love creates a dependence and that he must rid himself of this dependency if he is to be fully himself. Man does not want to receive his existence and the fullness of his life from God.

In a word, we think that evil is basically good, we think that we need it, at least a little, in order to experience the fullness of being

If we look, however, at the world that surrounds us we can see that this is not so; in other words, that evil is always poisonous, does not uplift human beings but degrades and humiliates them. It does not make them any the greater, purer or wealthier, but harms and belittles them.

This is something we should indeed learn on the day of the Immaculate Conception:  the person who abandons himself totally in God’s hands does not become God’s puppet, a boring “yes man”; he does not lose his freedom. Only the person who entrusts himself totally to God finds true freedom, the great, creative immensity of the freedom of good.

The person who turns to God does not become smaller but greater, for through God and with God he becomes great, he becomes divine, he becomes truly himself. The person who puts himself in God’s hands does not distance himself from others, withdrawing into his private salvation; on the contrary, it is only then that his heart truly awakens and he becomes a sensitive, hence, benevolent and open person.

Points for Prayer //

10 Beautiful Quotes to Ponder During the Christmas Season

1. St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430)

Man’s maker was made man, that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that the Truth might be accused of false witness, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.

2. St. John Chrysostom (347-407)

This day He Who Is, is born; and He Who Is becomes what He was not.

3. St. Ambrose of Milan (340-397)

Open wide your door to the one who comes. Open your soul, throw open the depths of your heart to see the riches of simplicity, the treasures of peace, the sweetness of grace. Open your heart and run to meet the Sun of eternal light that illuminates all men.

4. St. Anthony of Padua (1195-1231)

O Father, in your Truth (that is to say, in your Son, humbled, needy and homeless) you have humbled me. He was humbled in the womb of the Virgin, needy in the manger of the sheep, and homeless on the wood of the Cross. Nothing so humbles the proud sinner as the humility of Jesus Christ’s humanity.

5. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386)

Teacher of children became himself a child among children, that he might instruct the unwise. The Bread of heaven came down to earth to feed the hungry.

6. St. Gregory Nazianzen (329-390)

Christ is born, glorify Him! Christ from heaven, go out to meet Him! Christ on earth, be exalted! Sing to the Lord all the whole earth; and that I may join both in one word, let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, for Him who is of heaven and then of earth. Christ in the flesh, rejoice with trembling and with joy; with trembling because of your sins, with joy because of your hope.

7. St. Leo the Great (c.400-461)

Dearly beloved, today our Saviour is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness. No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all.

8. St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787)

Arise, all ye nobles and peasants; Mary invites all, rich and poor, just and sinners, to enter the cave of Bethlehem, to adore and to kiss the feet of her new-born Son. Go in, then, all ye devout souls; go and see the Creator of heaven and earth on a little hay, under the form of a little Infant; but so beautiful that he sheds all around rays of light. Now that he is born and is lying on the straw, the cave is no longer horrible, but is become a paradise. Let us enter; let us not be afraid.

9. St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

Awake, you who lie in the dust, awake and give praise. Behold, the Lord cometh with salvation. He comes with salvation, He comes with unction, He comes with glory. Jesus cannot come without salvation, Christ cannot come without unction, nor the Son of God without glory. For He Himself is salvation, He is unction, He is glory, as it is written, “A wise son is the glory of his father.”

10. St. Peter Chrysologus (c.380-c.450)

Christ’s birth was not necessity, but an expression of omnipotence, a sacrament of piety for the redemption of men. He who made man without generation from pure clay made man again and was born from a pure body. The hand that assumed clay to make our flesh deigned to assume a body for your salvation. That the Creator is in his creature and God is in the flesh brings dignity to man without dishonour to him who made him.

Why then, man, are you so worthless in your own eyes and yet so precious to God?

Benediction //

Access the Benediction Rite:

https://bit.ly/BenedictionER

Upcoming Retreats //