Today's Advent Meditation: The Daily Gospel with Fr. Philippe, O.P.

Luke 5: 17 - 26

Advent is a time of great poverty, and a time of joy. This time of penance has been transformed liturgically speaking into a time of poverty in joy. In earlier days, Advent was a time of great penance. Nowadays it is far less so, but it is a time of great poverty. Be servants to your brothers, your fathers, be servants to your sisters, be servant of all those who are in the world and who need these signs of service and love.

During Advent, be fervent servants of God's poor ones. It is necessary to be very much a servant in order to discover the poor. If we are not a servant, we do not discover the poor. I knew someone who didn't know what to do with his income. I suggested that he give it to the poor, but he answered, "But I never see any poor people. There are no poor people today. We have so many adept social workers that there are no more poor around." So I held out my hand .... To receive the poverty of our brothers and sisters requires a very great poverty from us. Otherwise, we do not see the poor, we think everyone is perfectly well - off, but that is not true. They are poor: spiritual poverty, poverty of the intelligence, poverty of the heart, poverty of the sensibilities, poverty of someone who cannot see anymore, who cannot taste anymore because he is constantly sick and too weak... Live poverty intensely in asking God to help you discover the truly poor.

~ Translated from French, by Fr. Marie - Dominque, OP, Founder of the Community of St. John
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Comments

  1. Anonymous12/10/07, 9:11 PM

    Thank you for sharing the Advent meditations by Fr Philippe. And thank you for all the posts about the Community of St John.

    At this very moment, a member of the Community, Fr. Nathan, is in our parish conducting a mission. He is wonderful.

    ReplyDelete

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