From our Spiritual Advisors:
My beloved sisters and brothers in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our loving Father and from Christ Jesus our Lord and the power of the Holy Spirit be with you now and always.
Greetings to you all in this precious Advent and Christmas Season.
Although on the surface things look pretty much the same yesterday as they do today, yet it is a new year, liturgy wise. A fresh opportunity to prepare for Jesus’s coming on his Birthday at Christmas, at the Second coming and in the myriad different ways he comes to us each and every day.
Because of our Cursillo experience, we know how to look for Jesus in one another. Perhaps we need a refresher and so Advent offers us that time and place to practice.
I uncovered a Christmas Card that I received last year from Matthew Kelly and the Dynamic Catholic Team that I’d like to share with you all. It captures my own sentiments, but they have a much better wording.
Life is messy!
Every day, in large ways and small, we have to decide if we are going to avoid the mess
Or
Immerse ourselves in the mess and do something about it.
This Christmas
Let’s be honest…things are a mess!
What makes Christmas brilliant and humbling, comforting and hopeful is
Jesus
The Son of God, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, the God-man of endless
Love and infinite grace - chose to put himself in the middle of our mess.
Every year, and every day. He doesn’t have to, but he chose to, in order to prove the
Father’s love for us.
(Dynamic Catholic Team)
So even though we recognize the messiness of life during this pandemic, we can count of Jesus to be there with us, side by side.
“COVID Cancelled” has drastically changed a lot of our regular routines, meetings, conferences, and the like, even our church services. We can almost identify with the C and E people (Christmas and Easter). Hopefully, we will be back to Eucharist and the Sacraments. But I think we have a lot of work ahead of us to bring back those who have been away for ten months. We must show the way and invite them, (especially family). A positive way to do that is by becoming E and C Catholics…Eucharist and Confession, so we have the spiritual strength and courage to evangelize.
My prayer is that we Cursillistas may embody the Incarnation so well that we will attract people back to Jesus, to their faith and prayer life. May we continue to His instruments throughout the New Year. You are all in my prayers, thoughts, Masses throughout the whole Christmas Season.
Fr Jim