Seek the face of the Lord.  He will bless and guide you.  He will shepherd you home.

Whether we are just beginning our search for God or are already a member of Christ's Body through Baptism, we are all "seekers."  God continually invites us to ask ourselves, "What am I looking for?  What or who does my heart desire?  Where have I been, and where am I going?"

by Michael Marchal

Background:  Christ still comes into this world when people of faith surrender to God’s call to live lives of love, a love that sacrifices everything so that God’s will may be accomplished.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. Which person has most revealed to you the presence of Christ? How did you welcome them?
2. Elizabeth is open to growth. In what part of your life have you never expected that Christ could come to you? And yet he has?
3. What outlooks, values, or preconceptions has Christ’s coming to you already called you to give up?
4. How will you bring peace this Christmas as you welcome others into your heart and your home?

Practice: Each morning or evening till Christmas, pray—hopefully with your family—the prayer called the Angelus.

by Michael Marchal

Background: Any parent, indeed anyone who has ever worked with teenagers, can relate to this gospel selection, the only one set between Jesus’s infancy and his Baptism. For it reveals to us a boy struggling to find his own vocation in life, his own core values which will guide him. And it reveals two parents who must still guard and direct him but who must also stand back and ponder what God is trying to do within him.
Notice also how in Luke’s gospel, which is clearly addressed to the Gentiles, both Jesus’s roots in an observant Jewish family are highlighted and how this first journey to Jerusalem in obedience to his Father’s business foreshadows his second journey later in the Gospel when he heads up to accomplish the Father’s will by his death and resurrection.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

1. When did you first hear God calling you to some direction or purpose in your life? Have there been other ones?
2. How have you struggled with that call?
3. Who have been your best supporters and guides on your journey of faith?
4. How has your life of love brought others to know a sense of purpose in their lives?

Practice: What teenagers do you know? This week each day pick one of them, and pray for them individually, not with an agenda but to ask God to guide them. Ask Mary to help you as you ponder. How might your prayer turn into words or deeds of encouragement?

by Michael Marchal

God's Word for Today:  Readings from scripture for Sunday Mass

Background: Matthew’s predominantly Jewish audience would have been a bit startled by the three Gentile “wise men” who come to adore the newborn King of the Jews. Yet Second Temple Judaism through the writings of the prophets had inherited a universalist component—as we see today in the reading from Isaiah. In the ancient world Jewish monotheism and moral standards were highly regarded and produced many converts.

But the wise men do not become converts: they return to their own country. As today’s epistle points out, anyone who has faith in Jesus become co-heirs with the Jewish people. All we have to do is leave him our gifts.

Discussion Questions

1. What fences have you put around God’s love? Whom do you think God excludes from grace and mercy?
2. When you have felt excluded, whom has God sent you to bring you a sense of love and self-worth?
3. Whom does our society or church seem to exclude?
4. What gift does God seem to want from you? The frankincense of your worship and prayer? The gold of your treasures? The myrrh of your patience endurance in suffering?

Practice: Once again, each day this week pray St. Ignatius Loyola’s prayer, the Suscipe. “Take, Lord, Receive.”

by Michael Marchal

God's Word for Today:  Readings from scripture for Sunday Mass

Background: In the ancient churches of the eastern Mediterranean world, even today baptism by immersion is still the usual practice. Naked babies and adults still get dipped (the etymology of the word baptism) into a tub of water. The few drops of water drizzled across babies’ foreheads among roman Catholics conceal the profound meaning of this event for believers. The very Spirit who hovered over the waters of creation now comes to recreate human beings into members of Christ/the Messiah, called to live a life of powerful witness by our deeds of love.

Discussion Questions

1. When have you most experienced God’s powerful and transforming love for you?
2. How much do you now expect from God? A little or a lot?
3. How much do you expect from yourself?
4. Where might you find the opportunity to bear a greater witness to the Spirit’s power at work within you?

Practice: A common prayer to the Holy Spirit from the Eastern (Byzantine) tradition is: “O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of truth,…” Pray it each day this week.