“To live is to be slowly born.”


Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Sunflower Seeds

Celebrating Everyday Spirituality

We Have a Winner!

So a red-shirt frosh has captured the Heisman and set a new record for the books.  A winner!  He must be full of happiness at such recognition; Texas A&M must be rejoicing along with him.

We have a winner in today’s Gospel for the Second Sunday of Advent.  John the Baptist, an odd man by our standards, born into privilege, dressed like a hippie, doing “his thing” down at the river water rather than in the temple, being prophetic for he had received the Word of God deeply into his heart, his psyche, his being, his very way of life.

We have winners around us today:  prophets in our midst.  Do we notice?  They might be stand outs like JB … odd people by our standards:  the person without a home standing on the street corner looking for a handout … the person in the news who stands up for human rights and gets cut down by various groups because we just can’t handle their message at the moment … the environmentalists challenging us to look at how we treat God’s lovely gift of creation … all these folks have something to say to us.  Advent might be a good time to reflect at the end of each day:  what prophet/s did I meet today?  What did they have to say to me?  Can I hold the tension of their challenge and my discomfort?  Am I able to feel God nudging me to “the more”?  Like JB, can I receive the Word of God deeply into my very being so that this Word transforms my very way of life?

Yes, we have winners all around us.  I hope that Manziel, Te’o, Klein, and Lee have parties and awards for their team efforts this season.  They deserve it. So do their respective schools.  But John the Baptist, a man we surely would place on the “marginalized persons” list if he were alive today, is also a big winner this Advent Sunday.  And he challenges us to go beyond the parties and awards to a place of welcoming the Word within.  I’m up for the challenge … how about you?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Blog Posts

I imagine you sang “Jesus Christ Is Risen Today” complete with trumpets on Easter Sunday morning. I hope you sing it again regardless of the date on the calendar. After all, Jesus is risen. Jesus is always risen. What we sing about is the reality. It’s the perennial, non-stop Paschal

A good strong verb, even a little one, adds color to a written composition. Which is better: (a) He made demands as if he were a king or (b) He pontificated? Your answer is a matter of opinion. One thing I’ve noticed about the Resurrection stories is that they have

Meet Sr. Valerie

As Sisters of Notre Dame, Mary is a model for us as we seek to experience and express God’s goodness and provident care in the unfolding of each day. Join us on the journey!

Subscribe to Blog

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Loading

Upcoming Events

Weekend retreat at Villa Maria Education and Spirituality Center, Pulaski, PA
October 11-13, 2024
Retreat with the Sisters of Loretto, Nerinx, KY
September 8-13, 2024
Retreat at Lial Renewal Center, Whitehouse, OH
August 11-18, 2024
Retreat at Heartland Center for Spirituality, Great Bend, KS
April 14-19, 2024
First Friday Club in Youngstown, Ohio
April 4, 2024