Ears to Hear - Advent 5
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Sermon by Augustine (98)
We hear again this week from St Augustine, the great teacher of the Christian West. In today’s reading, he’s comparing the figures of John the Baptist and Christ. John the Baptist is a great Advent figure. He reminds us that preparing for Christmas involves not only buying presents, but also a spiritual preparation: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord’ he says! He teaches us also the great virtue of humility too – he wished only to stand aside when Christ arrived on the scene. This is the humility with which we should be approaching the Christ-child in the cradle...
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What Must We Do
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- Written by Matthew Martinez OP
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3rd Sunday of Advent
Luke 3:10-18
On this the third Sunday of Advent, we are again given a Gospel passage where John the Baptist is in the forefront. Here, we are told that he preaches about authentic charity and the importance of being honest in all that we do. For the follower of Christ, charity is far more than simply giving material help to those in need. While we must give alms to the less fortunate, it is essential that we also treat those we are helping with respect and dignity. Without this outlook, our charitable acts can simply become a way of easing our conscience, rather that an opportunity to show true love to our neighbour. Love, of its very nature, must be selfless and in the Cross of Christ, we see the perfect example of this authentic love. Christ loves us so much that he gave up his life for us, so that we might be saved. We must seek always to imitate the love of Christ in our relationships with others. While we are called to provide material wealth to those in need, even more important, is the spiritual care we show to them, never being afraid to invite them into an encounter with the living Christ. True love liberates us from our selfish tendencies and brings us into contact with God, who is the author of love. Pope Benedict XVI, in his first Encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, puts is wonderfully when he says: “Love is indeed “ecstasy”, not in the sense of a moment of intoxication, but rather as a journey, an ongoing exodus out of the closed inward-looking self, towards its liberation through self-giving, and thus towards authentic self-discovery and indeed the discovery of God.”
Ears to Hear - Advent 4
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Augustine on the Psalms
St Augustine was a Roman African who lived in the dying days of the Roman Empire, he was a bishop, a theologian, and one of the greatest minds of the early Church. He wrote and preached an enormous amount of material, and we hear today a selection from his teaching on the book of Psalms.
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Reason for the Season - The Advent Wreath
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The Reason for the Season - is a section on our website in which we, the student brothers of the Irish Province of Dominicans, will try to give a background to the seasons of the liturgical year (Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter) all with the aim of helping you to experience these times more richly, and ultimately to participate more deeply in the mysteries of Christ's life. The video below is the first in this series and, in it, we attempt to explain the significance of the Advent Wreath. Watch this space for more articles and videos!
The music in this video is by Paul Tate (www.giamusic.com/bios/paul-tate), and it is used with permission.
Ears to Hear - Advent 3
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Lumen Gentium (81)
In 1962, Pope John XXIII opened the Second Vatican Council, a gathering of several thousand bishops whose task was to rearticulate the teaching of the Church in the context of the modern world. Today, we hear from one of the documents they produced, Lumen Gentium, the Constitution on the Church. We hear that the Church doesn’t just look backwards to Jesus, but also looks forward to the end of time, when He will come again, and inaugurate a new heaven and a new earth. In Advent, we remind ourselves that we are a people of hope, yearning for the second coming of Christ.
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Advent: a time to meet Jesus
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- Written by Luuk Jansen OP
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2nd Sunday of Advent
Luke 3:1-6
Last Sunday was the first Sunday of Advent and the Gospel focussed on the second coming of Christ. In this the second Sunday of Advent the focus is on the announcement of the coming of Jesus to his public ministry with the appearance of John the Baptist.
Advent is a time of 'actively waiting', a time in which we wait for the Lord to come to us, while we prepare at the same time for His coming. This was very clear in the message last week, to be ready when Jesus comes. This week we read about John the Baptist, and his call to us to prepare the way and Saint Luke quotes here the prophesy of Isaiah saying "a voice cries in the wilderness: prepare a way for the Lord, make his paths straight".
