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TODAY’S WORD…
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Let us walk in the light which the Lord gives us!
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– Isaiah 2:5 (GNT)
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If you love others, you will never do them wrong; to love, then, is to obey the whole Law.
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You must do this,
because you know that the time has come for you to wake up from your sleep.
For the moment when we will be saved is closer now than it was when we first believed.
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The night is nearly over, day is almost here.
Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark,
and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light.
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Let us conduct ourselves properly, as people who live in the light of day
– no orgies or drunkenness, no immorality or indecency, no fighting or jealousy.
But take up the weapons of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and stop paying attention to your sinful nature and satisfying its desires.
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– Romans 13:10-14 (GNT)
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REFLECTION…
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Have hope and prepare for God!
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Our God is faithful to us always and He knows about the situation we are in.
Our God is always moving to bring us together.
Our only real hope of coming together is to walk in the light God – to walk in God’s love.
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The closer we come to our God,
the closer we will come toward one another as we become filled with an incomparable great hope.
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Each one of us can find a desire in our hearts to embrace love and peace.
As St. Paul says, it is a time for us to “wake up from sleep”, from our self-induced and, often, pride-fueled inertia.
This is a season to reject and discard so many things that are all about darkness
and to instead “take up the weapons of the Lord Jesus Christ” – the noble weapons of Light.
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We might have been so stuck in discouragement
that we are no longer attentive to signs of hope, to graces being offered us, to any light at all.
Could this Advent season, which starts today,
be one in which I give myself to more opportunities for togetherness, for bridge building?
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Sometimes genuine healing and reconciliation in our families, our communities and in our world need serious preparation.
We prepare by letting light, God’s light, into all external and internal places of darkness.
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Concretely, can this Advent be about continuing gestures of love for a spouse who often annoys me?
Can this be a time to reach out to the adult child who has disappointed me – who I also might have hurt by my own judgements?
What nice, caring, generous things can I do that builds a bridge, without recalling a hurt or continuing with my finger pointing?
Is there a friend or relative I have recently quarrelled with because of differing opinions about something?
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Advent is not about saving ourselves, it is about recognising that God is already with us and in us.
All we have to do is feel God’s presence in our hearts…and yearning to become more like Him.
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This wonderful season is about recognising our own weakness,
yet realising how deeply God cares for us, even in our deepest failings.
So let us make every effort to love deeply and unconditionally, as we faithfully “walk in the light which the Lord gives us!”
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Meanwhile we can pray, with great hope and growing desire,
“Come, Lord Jesus. We await your coming. Come O Lord.”
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[*]
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PRAYER FOR TODAY AND FOR EVERY DAY OF ADVENT…
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Come, Lord Jesus. We await your coming.
Come O Lord.
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– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
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[*] today’s Reflection owes a lot to a reflection by Maureen McCann Waldron at http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry.
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A LAMP TO MY FEET. A LIGHT FOR MY PATH. 