Catholic Caucus: Daily Mass Readings, 12-06-05, Optional Memorial of St. Nicholas

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Meditation
Psalm 96

Sing to the Lord, bless his name. (Psalm 96:2)

Why is it that when it comes to prayer we tend to worry whether we are doing it right? Why do we get concerned with whether our sins are too big for God to hear our cries for his mercy or our statements of love for him? Why are we sometimes so afraid of not being right with God that we don’t think we can even repent of any unfaithfulness and receive his forgiveness and love? Because the devil wants to convince us to give up. He knows that if he can keep us in fear over our sins or unworthiness, he will keep us from God.

It’s a pretty clever strategy, but one that is doomed to fail once we come to know what God is really like. Our God has loved us with an everlasting love. He rejoices over us every day and loves to shower us with his love and faithfulness. He even loves the most minute effort on our part to worship him. He just needs one small opening for his love to come rushing into our hearts. Every time we try to pray—especially as we spend time praising and worshipping the Lord—we can be lifted up to heaven. We don’t have to be entrenched in this world! Through prayer, our gaze can change from horizontal to vertical as we receive a much bigger picture of who God is and how small our sin is in comparison.

If you are struggling with prayer, don’t turn away in frustration or guilt! Instead, cry out to God. Remember that he gave you his Holy Spirit to help you pray in the first place (Romans 8:26). Trust that the Spirit knows even your deepest, darkest thoughts and still wants to bring you closer to your heavenly Father. In faith and confidence, simply begin praising God for his goodness and love. Thank him for his mercy and extol him for his power. Persist in this prayer, and watch the Holy Spirit reward you a hundredfold!

“Thank you, Father, for your overflowing love and kindness. Lord, I praise you because you are faithful, even when my heart grows cold and distant. Come into my heart with the fire of your love so that I will not be enticed by the world but by your beauty instead. Lord, I love you!”

Isaiah 40:1-11; Matthew 18:12-14

Cookies rolled in powdered sugar always work for me!

'Tis the season to indulge!

One Bread, One Body

<< Tuesday, December 6, 2005 >>

St. Nicholas

Isaiah 40:1-11

Psalm 96

Matthew 18:12-14

View Readings

BULLDOZERS

"A voice says, 'Cry out!' I answer, 'What shall I cry out?' " —Isaiah 40:6

When we think of Christmas preparations, we think of trees, cards, presents, cookies, and candles. However, the Bible speaks of a different kind of preparation. To prepare the way of the Lord, we must turn a desert wasteland into "a highway for our God" (Is 40:3). This means bulldozers, earthmovers, dynamite, a fleet of dump trucks, and the Army Corps of Engineers. It would take all that to lay low mountains and hills and use them as fill dirt for valleys (Is 40:4).

It's a big operation to take crooked, rough, winding ways and make them straight and smooth. Yet this is the picture the Bible presents about preparing for Christ's coming. This Advent time of preparation requires a heavy-duty job of deep repentance, conversion, soul-searching, and healing. It can be heart-wrenching, painful, convicting, and tearful. However, the end product is a clear and straight road for the Christmas Jesus into our hearts.

What will it be — superficialities, worldly desires, and mere customs, or a real Advent preparing for a real relationship with Jesus?

Prayer: Jesus, bring in the bulldozer. All I've got to lose is my sin and selfishness.

Promise: "It is no part of your heavenly Father's plan that a single one of these little ones shall ever come to grief." —Mt 18:14

Praise: St. Nicholas' generosity was a gift from God not only for his generation, but to many generations of Christians after him.

Mt 18:12-14
#	Douay-Rheims	Vulgate
12	What think you? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray: doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and goeth to seek that which is gone astray?	quid vobis videtur si fuerint alicui centum oves et erraverit una ex eis nonne relinquet nonaginta novem in montibus et vadit quaerere eam quae erravit
13	And if it so be that he find it: Amen I say to you, he rejoiceth more for that, than for the ninety-nine that went not astray.	et si contigerit ut inveniat eam amen dico vobis quia gaudebit super eam magis quam super nonaginta novem quae non erraverunt
14	Even so it is not the will of your Father, who is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.	sic non est voluntas ante Patrem vestrum qui in caelis est ut pereat unus de pusillis istis

The Basilica of S. Apollinare Nuovo

6th C.
Ravenna, Italy

St. Nicholas the Wonderwoker

There is something very simple any Christian should do to restore Christ as the center of Christmas, and impart sense into Christmass shopping. Explain to your kids that Santa Claus is real. Then tell them the story of the man of Patara and his three daughters. Here he is, the worker of wonders and the man of fierce temperament.

For more St. Nicholas material, visit Orthodox Feast of +Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra, Dec. 6

man of fierce temperament

I was referring to this account:

No less was [St. Nicholas] known for his zeal for the truth. He was present at the First Ecumenical Council of the 318 Fathers at Nicaea in 325; upon hearing the blasphemies that Arius brazenly uttered against the Son of God, Saint Nicholas struck him on the face. Since the canons of the Church forbid the clergy to strike any man at all, his fellow bishops were in perplexity what disciplinary action was to be taken against this hierarch whom all revered. In the night our Lord Jesus Christ and our Lady Theotokos appeared to certain of the bishops, informing them that no action was to be taken against him, since he had acted not out of passion, but extreme love and piety.