Advent, like its cousin Lent, is a season for prayer and reformation of our hearts...Our worship and devotion will have to stoke the kind of fire in our souls that can truly change our hearts.
-A Pilgrim's Almanac
December2
Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter;
whoever finds one has found a treasure.
Faithful friends are beyond price;
no amount can balance their worth.
Faithful friends are lifesaving medicine;
and those who fear the Lord will find them.
Those who fear the Lord direct their friendship aright for as they are, so are their neighbors also.
-Sirach 6:14-17
December 3
I have felt tender breathings in my soul after God.
-John Woolman
December 4
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
-E.B. White
December 5
If you have money, consider that perhaps the only reason God allowed it to fall into your hands was in order that you might find joy and perfection by throwing it away.
-Thomas Merton
December 6
To offer no resistance to life is to be in a state of grace, ease, and lightness.
-Eckhart Tolle
December 7
Grace transforms our failings full of dread into abundant, endless comfort;
grace transforms our failings full of shame into a noble, glorious rising;
grace transforms our dying full of sorrow into holy blissful life.
-Julian of Norwich
December 8
There is a little plant called reverence in the corner of my soul's garden, which I love to have watered once a week.
-Oliver Wendell Holmes
December 9
What power has love but forgiveness?
-William Carlos Williams
December 10
It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in your own home. Bring love into your home, for this is where our love for each other must start.
-Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
December 11
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
-Walt Whitman
December 12
Your task:
To build a better world said God.
I answered: How?
The world is such a large, vast place
So complicated now
And I, so small and
useless am.
There's nothing I can do.
But God in his great wisdom said:
Just build a better you.
-Anonymous
December13
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
-Kahlil Gibran
December14
Our mouths were filled laughter;
our tongues sang for joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
"The Lord has done great things for them"
-Psalm 126:1-2
December 15
Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing we call human existence.
-Anthony de Mello, S.J.
December16
Holiness is knowing we have tasted God and knowing that we can never be satisfied with just that taste. It is choosing, in spite of our fear, to go more deeply.
-Joyce Rupp
December 17
I can live for two months on a good compliment.
-Mark Twain
December18
Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black curious eyes of a child--our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
-Thich Nhat Hanh
December19
See, I am sending an angel before you to guard you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared.
-Exodus 23:20
December 20
The house with an old grandparent harbors a jewel.
-Chinese Proverb
December 21
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.
-Henry David Thoreau
December 22
I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
-Philippians 4:13
December23
Come in now to your home, and welcome with blessing and joy.
-Tobit 11:17
December24
The best of all gifts around a Christmas tree: The presence of a happy family all wrapped up in each other.
-Burton Hillis (Bill Vaughan)
December25
God has entrusted this last, deepest, and most beautiful word to the world, in the Word made flesh. This Word says: "I love you, world, man and woman. I am there. I am with you. I am your life. I am your time. I weep your tears. I am your joy. Do not be afraid. When you do not know how to go any further, I am with you. I am in your anguish, because I suffered it Myself. I am in your need and your death, because today I began to live and die with you. I am your life. I promise you: For you, too, life is waiting. For you, too, the gates will open."
-Karl, Rahner S.J.
December 26
Come now, let us talk this over...
Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be white as snow;
though they are as red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
-Isaiah 1:18
December 27
To love a person is to learn the song
that is in their heart,
And to sing it to them
when they have forgotten.
-Anonymous
December28
God is always the most visible the moment the inner eye is clear.
-Rufus M. Jones
December 29
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only that that ever has.
-Margaret Mead
December 30
The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.
-Flannery O'Connor
December 31
Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day, you shall begin it well and serenely.
Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and, trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father's house. I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for your will come back and take you with me so that you may be where I am going.
