Advent Quote of the Day 16

Because the Pope is a witness of Christ and a minister of the Good News, he is a man of joy and a man of hope, a man of the fundamental affirmation of the value of existence, the value of creation and of hope in the future life. Naturally, this is neither a naive joy, nor a vain hope. The joy of victory over evil does not obfuscate - it actually intensifies - the realistic awareness of the existence of evil in the world and in every man. The Gospel teaches us to call good and evil by name, but it also teaches: "Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good."

- Pope John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope

Advent Quote of the Day 15

What is Advent? Many answers can be given. We can grumble and say that it is nothing but a pretext for hectic activity and commercialism, prettified with sentimental cliches in which people stopped believing ages ago. In many cases this may be true, but it is not the whole picture.

We can say the reverse, that Advent is a time when, in the midst of an unbelieving world, something of the luminous quality of this lost faith is still perceptible, like a visual echo. Just as stars are visible long after they have become extinct, since their erstwhile light is still on its way to us, so this mystery frequently offers some warmth and hope even to those who are no longer able to believe in it.

We can also say that Advent is a time when a kindness that is otherwise almost entirely forgotten is mobilized; namely, the willingness to think of others and give them a token of kindness. Finally we can say that Advent is a time when old customs live again, for instance, in the singing of carols which takes place all over the country. In the melodies and the words of these carols, something of the simplicity, imagination and glad strength of the faith of our forefathers makes itself heard in our age, bringing consolation and encouraging us perhaps to have another go at that faith which could make people so glad in such hard times.

This latter kind of experience of Advent brings us quite close to what the Christian tradition has in mind with this season. It has expressed its view of Advent in the bible texts which it took as the season's signposts. I will mention just one of them, a few verses from Paul's letter to the Christians in Rome. There he says, '...it is full time now for you to wake from sleep... the night is far gone, the day is at hand. Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, let us conduct ourselves becomingly as in the day, not in revelling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarrelling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ...' So Advent means getting up, being awake, emerging out of sleep and darkness.

- Cardinal Ratzinger, Seek That Which is Above

Advent Quote of the Day 14

To have Christian hope means to know about evil and yet to go to meet the future with confidence. The core of faith rests upon accepting being loved by God, and therefore to believe is to say Yes, not only to him, but to creation, to creatures, above all, to men, to try to see the image of God in each person and thereby to become a lover. That’s not easy, but the basic Yes, the conviction that God has created men, that he stands behind them, that they aren’t simply negative, gives love a reference point that enables it to ground hope on the basis of faith. - Cardinal Ratzinger, Salt of the Earth

Advent Quote of the Day 13

Love tends to become like the one loved; in fact, it even wishes to become one with the one loved. God loved unworthy man. He willed to become one with him, and that was the Incarnation.

- Archbishop Fulton Sheen, The Quotable Fulton Sheen

Advent Quote of the Day 12

All this indescribable thing that we call the Christmas atmosphere only hangs in the air as something like a lingering fragrance or fading vapour from the exultant explosion of that one hour in the Judean hills nearly two thousand years ago. But the savour is still unmistakable, and it is something too subtle or too solitary to be covered by our use of the word peace. By the very nature of the story the rejoicings in the cavern were rejoicings in a fortress or an outlaw's den; properly understood it is not unduly flippant to say they were rejoicings in a dug-out. It is not only true that such a subterranean chamber was a hiding-place from enemies; and that the enemies were already scouring the stony plain that lay above it like a sky. It is not only that the very horse-hoofs of Herod might in that sense have passed like thunder over the sunken head of Christ. It is also that there is in that image a true idea of an outpost, of a piercing through the rock and an entrance into an enemy territory. There is in this buried divinity an idea of undermining the world; of shaking the towers and palaces from below; even as Herod the great king felt that earthquake under him and swayed with his swaying palace.

- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Advent Quote of the Day 11

Do we know Jesus? Only if we recognize in him the presence and the logic of absolute divine love. This love can refine whatever in us does not oppose the flame of love, but whatever refuses to bring forth love's fruit will be let wither, dug up and burned.

Jesus interprets God in the language of a human life. For God, the humanity of Jesus is not an inert, mechanical alphabet simply used to put the absolute into words. The interpreter himself speaks with his whole existence of flesh and blood. The picture, the parable which the man Jesus is, does not face, since the eternal prototype radiates in him, is perfected in him. It can do this because, in God, the eternal Son always was the eternal Father's self-offering and self-interpretation. To understand Jesus' word, which coincides with his existence, is to have access (and there is no other!) to the eternal trinitarian mystery of love. This is only possible in the Holy Spirit.

-Hans Urs von Balthasar, Does Jesus Know Us? Do We Know Him?

Advent Quote of the Day 10

And as Jesus prepares for the messianic entry into the city which will kill him as it has killed all the prophets, he bursts into tears - surely the most moving scene in the Gospel, eternal love being forced to weep over the strength of human rejection: "Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes."

- Hans Urs von Balthasar, Does Jesus Know Us? Do We Know Him?

Advent Quote of the Day 9

For those without faith in a loving God it is impossible to realize that suffering can be understood as a gift of God, and it would be impossible to experience that inner joy and peace that absolute trust in God’s providential love alone can bring us, no matter in what situation we find ourselves. It is only with faith in Jesus as the Son of God, who has shared our suffering that we are able to find meaning in suffering. I have often reflected on what the famous dramatist and diplomat of France, Paul Claudel, said with such wisdom and faith: “Jesus did not come to explain away suffering or remove it. He came to fill it with His presence.” Often it is only long after the suffering has passed, that we begin to understand more fully God’s loving hand in our lives even at that time.

- Bishop John Steinbock of Fresno, who died of cancer yesterday

Advent Quote of the Day 8

We can try to limit suffering, to fight against it, but we cannot eliminate it. It is when we attempt to avoid suffering by withdrawing from anything that might involve hurt, when we try to spare ourselves the effort and pain of pursuing truth, love, and goodness, that we drift into a life of emptiness, in which there may be almost no pain, but the dark sensation of meaninglessness and abandonment is all the greater. It is not by sidestepping or fleeing from suffering that we are healed, but rather by our capacity for accepting it, maturing through it and finding meaning through union with Christ, who suffered with infinite love.

- Pope Benedict XVI, Spe Salvi

Advent Quote of the Day 7

A mass of legend and literature, which increases and will never end, has repeated and rung the changes on that single paradox; that the hands that had made the sun and stars were too small to reach the huge heads of the cattle. Upon this paradox, we might almost say upon this jest, all the literature of our faith is founded...

I mean that all the eyes of wonder and worship which had been turned outwards to the largest thing were now turned inward to the smallest...

It is true that the spiritual spiral henceforward works inwards instead of outwards, and in that sense is centripical and not centrifugal. The faith becomes, in more ways than one, a religion of little things.

- G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

Advent Quote of the Day 6

This text from the Letter to the Philippians introduces us into the mystery of Christ's kenosis. To express this mystery the apostle uses first of all the words "emptied himself," which refers especially to the reality of the Incarnation. "The Word became flesh" (Jn 1:14). God the Son assumed human nature, humanity, and became true man, while remaining God! The truth about Christ as man must always be considered in relation to God the Son. This permanent reference itself is indicated by St. Paul's text. "He emptied himself" does not in any way mean that he ceased to be God; that would be absurd! It means rather, as the apostle perceptively expressed it, that "he did not deem equality with God something to be grasped," but "though he was in the form of God" (in forma Dei), as the true Son of God, he assumed a human nature deprived of glory, subject to suffering and death, in which he could live in obedience to the Father, even to the ultimate sacrifice.

Pope John Paul II, "Jesus Christ Emptied Himself", General Audience, Feb 17, 1988

Advent Quote of the Day 5

The Christian faith brings us exactly that consolation, that God is so great that he can become small. And that is actually for me the unexpected and previously inconceivable greatness of God, that he is able to bow down so low. That he himself really enters into a man, no longer merely disguises himself in him so that he can later put him aside and put on another garment, but that he becomes this man. It is just in this that we actually see the truly infinite nature of God, for this is more powerful, more inconceivable than anything else, and at the same time more saving.

- Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, God and the World: A Conversation with Peter Seewald

Advent Quote of the Day 4

Many women, if they were expecting a child, would refuse to hurry over the hills on a visit of pure kindness. They would say they had a duty to themselves and to their unborn child which came before anything or anyone else.

The Mother of God considered no such thing. Elizabeth was going to have a child, too, and although Mary's own child was God, she could not forget Elizabeth's need - almost incredible to us, but characteristic of her.

She greeted her cousin Elizabeth, and at the sound of her voice, John quickened in his mother's womb and leapt for joy.

"I am come," said Christ, "that they may have life, and may have it more abundantly." Even before He was born His presence gave life.

With what piercing shoots of joy does this story of Christ unfold! First, the conception of a child in a child's heart, and then this first salutation, an infant leaping for joy in his mother's womb, knowing the hidden Christ and leaping into life.

How did Elizabeth herself know what had happened to Our Lady? What made her realise that this little cousin who was so familiar to her was the mother of her God?

She knew it by the child within herself, by the quickening into life which was a leap of joy.

If we practice this contemplation taught and shown to us by Our Lady, we will find that our experience is like hers.

If Christ is growing in us, if we are at peace, recollected, because we know that however insignificant our life seems to be, from it He is forming Himself; if we go with eager wills, "in haste," to wherever our circumstances compel us, because we believe that He desires to be in that place, we shall find that we are driven more and more to act on the impulse of His love.

-Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God

Advent Quote of the Day 3

It is commonly in a somewhat cynical sense that men have said, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall not be disappointed." It was in a wholly happy and enthusiastic sense that Saint Francis said, "Blessed is he that expecteth nothing, for he shall enjoy everything." It was by this deliberate idea of starting from zero, from the dark nothingness of his own deserts, that he did come to enjoy them.

- G.K. Chesterton, St. Francis of Assisi as quoted in Advent and Christmas Wisdom from G.K. Chesterton

Reminder: Today is the first day of the St. Andrew/Christmas Novena. It is said 15 times each day from today (the feast of St. Andrew) thru Christmas Eve. You can find it in the sidebar of O Night Divine, a blog about celebrating Advent and Christmas.

Advent Quote of the Day 2

Man's creaturely condition sets the standard for his activity in the world. However, creation sets in motion a story of love and freedom. This entails a risk: "As the arena of love [the world] is also the playground of freedom and also incurs the risk of evil." Man is created with freedom, which implies that he is capable of sinning. At the very heart of sin is the refusal to accept one's creatureliness, and the standards and limitations implicit in it...

[Those] who consider dependence on the highest love as slavery and who try to deny the truth about themselves, which is their creatureliness, do not free themselves; they destroy truth and love. They do not make themselves gods, which in fact they cannot do, but rather caricatures, pseudo-gods, slaves of their own abilities, which then drag them down...

Jesus' obedience, which is the standard for creatureliness, is the context for our freedom. Dependence on God, which creatureliness implies, is not an imposition, but the condition for true freedom and true joy.


- Msgr. Joseph Murphy, Christ Our Joy: The Theological Vision of Pope Benedict XVI

Advent Quote of the Day

When we reflect on such things, we shall simply no longer be able to divide history into ages of salvation and of iniquity. If we then extend our vision and look at what Christians (that is, those people we call 'redeemed') achieved in the world by way of iniquity and devastation, in our own century and the previous centuries, then we will be equally incapable of dividing the peoples of the world into those who are saved and those who are not. If we are honest, we will no longer be able to paint things black and white, dividing up both history and maps into zones of salvation and iniquity. History as a whole, and mankind as a whole, will appear to us rather as a mass of gray, in which time and again there appear flickers of that goodness which can never quite be extinguished, in which, time and again, men set out toward something better, but in which also, time and again, collapses occur into all the horrors of evil.

Yet when we reflect like this, it becomes plain that Advent is not (as might perhaps have been said in earlier ages) a sacred game of the liturgy, in which, so to speak, it leads us once more along the paths of the past, gives us once more a vivid picture of the way things once were, so that we may all the more joyfully and happily enjoy today's salvation. We should have to admit, rather, that Advent is not just a matter of remembrance and playing at what is past - Advent is our present, our reality: the Church is not just playing at something here; rather, she is referring us to something that also represents the reality of our Christian life. It is through the meaning of the season of Advent in the Church's year that she revives our awareness of this. She should make us face these facts, and make us admit the extend of being unredeemed, which is not something that lay over the world at one time, and perhaps somewhere still does, but is a fact in our own lives and in the midst of the Church.

Cardinal Ratzinger, What it Means to be a Christian (a book of Advent sermons)

Quote of the Day: Pope Benedict XVI on Saint Paul

Our catechism discussion group is reading and discussing Pope Benedict's book on St. Paul right now. Here's an interesting quote on St. Paul's conversion:

This turning point in his life, this transformation of his whole being was not the fruit of a psychological process, of a maturation or intellectual and moral development. Rather it came from the outside: it was the fruit, not of his thought, but of his encounter with Jesus Christ. In this sense it was not simply a conversion, a development of his "ego", but rather a death and a resurrection for Paul himself. One existence died, and another, new one was born with the Risen Christ. There is no other way in which to explain this renewal of Paul. None of the psychological analyses can clarify or solve the problem. This event alone, this powerful encounter with Christ, is the key to understanding what had happened: death and resurrection, renewal by the One who had shown himself and had spoken to him. In this deeper sense we can and we must speak of conversion. This encounter is a real renewal that changed all his parameters. Now he could say that what had been essential and fundamental for him earlier had become "refuse" for him; it was no longer "gain" but loss, because henceforth the only thing that counted for him was life in Christ.

Nevertheless we must not think that Paul was thus closed in a blind event. The contrary is true, because the Risen Christ is the light of truth, the light of God himself. This expanded his heart and made it open to all. At this moment he did not lose all that was good and true in his life, in his heritage, but he understood wisdom, truth, the depth of the Law and of the prophets in a new way and in a new way made them his own. At the same time, his reasoning was open to pagan wisdom. Being open to Christ with all his heart, he had become capable of making himself everything to everyone. Thus he could truly be the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Quote of the Day: Edifying Reformers

‘The critic without love resembles rather a man who scratches himself all the more furiously, the more fiercely he itches, a process which of course can only result in exacerbating and spreading the inflammation. The great saints were reformers of the Church but they were edifying reformers. Not all great reformers were saints, that is to say those who truly loved; many of them destroyed more than they built up…’

Hans Urs von Balthasar (as quoted in Authenticity by Fr. Thomas Dubay)

I'm piecing together a virtual notebook where I'm collecting favorites quotes (and other tidbits), particularly on education and family life, in one place. You can take a peek at the project (under construction) here: Love2learn Notebook

Quote of the Day: Making Adjustments

It may surprise today's reader to learn that the Roman Catechism in the sixteenth century was fully aware of the problem of catechetical methodology. It remarks that a lot depends on whether the instructor teaches something in one way or another. Therefore one must carefully study the age, intellectual ability, way of life, and social situation of the listeners, so as really to become all things to all men. The catechist must know who needs milk and who eats solid food, and he should adapt his teaching to the ability of the listeners to absorb it. The biggest surprise for us, however, may be the fact that this catechism allows the catechist much more freedom than contemporary catechetics, generally speaking, is inclined to do. Indeed, it leaves to the instructor to determine the sequence of topics in his catechesis, depending on the persons being instructed and time constraints - assuming, of course, that the catechist himself is personally dedicated and lives a life based on an ongoing meditation upon his material and that he keeps in view the four principal divisions of catechesis and coordinates his own plan with them...In other words, this means that it makes available to the catechist the indispensable basic divisions of catechesis and their particular contents, but it does not relieve him of the responsibility to seek the appropriate way of communicating them in a given situation. (Cardinal Ratzinger - Handing on the Faith in an Age of Disbelief)

Quote of the Day: Faith and Reason

"Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever contradict truth." "Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the same God. The humble and persevering investigator of the secrets of nature is being led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of all things, who made them what they are." The Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 159