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Take Time to be Aware Edward Hays, A Pilgrim’s Almanac, p. 196 "Take time to be aware that in the very midst of our busy preparations for the celebration of Christ’s birth in ancient Bethlehem, Christ is reborn in the Bethlehems of our homes and daily lives. Take time, slow down, be still, be awake to the Divine Mystery that looks so common and so ordinary yet is wondrously present. "An old abbot was fond of saying, ‘The devil is always the most active on the highest feast days.’ "The supreme trick of Old Scratch is to have us so busy decorating, preparing food, practicing music and cleaning in preparation for the feast of Christmas that we actually miss the coming of Christ. Hurt feelings, anger, impatience, injured egos—the list of clouds that busyness creates to blind us to the birth can be long, but it is familiar to us all."

Carmelite Monastery of St Joseph's cover photo

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Happy 80th Birthday Pope Francis! We are praying for you here in Kilmacud Carmel!! God bless you and give you strength and health.

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Fire of Advent Edward Hays, A Pilgrim’s Almanac, p. 187 "Advent, like its cousin Lent, is a season for prayer and reformation of our hearts. Since it comes at winter time, fire is a fitting sign to help us celebrate Advent…If Christ is to come more fully into our lives this Christmas, if God is to become really incarnate for us, then fire will have to be present in our prayer. Our worship and devotion will have to stoke the kind of fire in our souls that can truly change our hearts. Ours is a great responsibility not to waste this Advent time."

Blessing of the Crib in the Stillorgan Village Centre

Carmelite Monastery of St Joseph's cover photo

Food Collection for Humans Too

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Old-fashioned, Spiritual Christmas? John R. Brokhoff, Preaching the Parables—Cycle C. p. 28. "What has happened to the old-fashioned, spiritual Christmas? The cause is our disregard of Advent. The church set aside this four-week pre-Christmas season as a time of spiritual preparation for Christ’s coming. It is a time of quiet anticipation. If Christ is going to come again into our hearts, there must be repentance. Without repentance, our hearts will be so full of worldly things that there will be ‘no room in the inn’ for Christ to be born again.…We have the joy not of celebration. Which is the joy of Christmas, but the joy of anticipation."

Carmelite Monastery of St Joseph's cover photo

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Memory Awakens Hope Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Seek That Which Is Above,1986 "Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart’s memory so that it can discern the star of hope.… It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope."

Pope Receives Taoiseach Enda Kenny

Already looking forward to the Pope's visit to Ireland in 2018!!!

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Life Is an Advent Season (from http://www.appleseeds.org/christmas-quotes.htm) "Life is a constant Advent season: we are continually waiting to become, to discover, to complete, to fulfill. Hope, struggle, fear, expectation and fulfillment are all part of our Advent experience. "The world is not as just, not as loving, not as whole as we know it can and should be. But the coming of Christ and his presence among us—as one of us—give us reason to live in hope: that light will shatter the darkness, that we can be liberated from our fears and prejudices, that we are never alone or abandoned. "May this Advent season be a time for bringing hope, transformation and fulfillment into the Advent of our lives."