If we are to defeat the mosquitoes of terrorism we must drain the swamps of poverty and despair, which result in the stones of anger, hatred and violence.

Rt Rev Peter Price in his maiden speech to the House of Lords in which he expressed fear that the church is obsessed with its own internal agenda

Mothers of God

We are all meant to be mothers of God. What good is it to me if this eternal birth of the divine Son takes place unceasingly but does not take place within myself? And, what good is it to me if Mary is full of grace if I am not also full of grace? What good is it to me for the Creator to give birth to his Son if I do not also give birth to him in my time and my culture? Then, then, is the fullness of time: When the Son of God is begotten in us.

Meister Eckhart (14th century)

Mary's YES

"According to ancient Christian writers, God waits for Mary's yes; creation waits; Adam and Eve wait, the dead in the underworld wait; the angels wait; and so do we. With Mary's yes, hope is enlivened and history is changed. There is an unimaginable future for all people, a future that comes from God. All nations assemble in justice, compassion and gratitude. Salvation is created among us, and the fate of history is altered by a godly presence. This salvation resides in the hearts of those who believe in the gift and who stay awake eagerly to know it is coming. With David we await it, with the nations we long for it, and with Mary we behold it."

Dianne Bergant

Christmas Blues

Homecomings [for the Christmas holidays], whether they are to church or family households, can be filled with expectation and met with disappointment. Cynthia Jarvis touches on these painful places in the human heart, "conditions ... made acute by the culture's merriment: the relationships severed, the addictions hidden, the violence barely domesticated, the depression denied, the affair raging, the self-loathing cut deep into the flesh, the greed, the hatred, the fear."
from Kate Huey in Weekly Seeds

Vocation

In the teleology of vocation,
each moment has a vocation;
each day, many callings;
and each lifetime, many pathways,
in the context of God’s Holy Adventure.

Bruce Epperly: Process and Faith
He also refers to the words of singer/song writer Carrie Newcomer:

The empty page
The open book
Redemption everywhere I look.

Paco forgiven

Madrid is full of boys named Paco, which is diminutive for the name Francisco, and there is a Madrid joke about a father who came to Madrid and inserted an advertisement in the personal columns of El Liberal which said: PACO MEET ME AT THE HOTEL MONTANA NOON TUESDAY ALL IS FORGIVEN PAPA and how a squadron of Guardia Civil had to be called out to disperse the eight hundred young men who answerd the advertisement.

So begins Ernest Hemingway's short story "The Capital of the World"

Strong minds break strong chains.

Rev Jesse Jackson

Advent and the adult Christ

It is an adult Christ that the community encounters during the Advent and Christmas cycles of Sunday and feasts: a Risen Lord who invites sinful people to become the church. Christmas does not ask us to pretend we were back in Bethlehem, kneeling before a crib; it asks us to recognize that the wood of the crib became the wood of the cross.

—Nathan Mitchel, quoted in, LITURGY WITH STYLE AND GRACE by Gabe Huck and Gerald T. Chinchar. (Archdiocese of Chicago, Liturgy Training Publications, 1998, page 97. Paper, ISBN 1-56854-186-4 in Preachers' Exchange