Harvesting The Fruits of Contemplation

(St. Vincent Ferrer Parish, NYC) "Once again we are in Advent, which reminds us vividly, beautifully of Christ's first Advent in time. Even while He is coming, He is also with us now in many ways. He is with us in the Tabernacle. Incredible love that He is, He could not separate Himself from us. He also walks among us and all his priests. Through their hands, He multiplies Himself in the hosts so that they can feed us with the Bread of Life – Himself. How immense must be His love for us. Think for a moment. Allow a few moments of silence to interrupt your reading of this page. Try to comprehend the lavishness of God's love for us. Daily millions of Hosts are given in Holy Communion to the faithful throughout the world. And each Host is Christ, coming in tremendous love to be united to each and all. Think about it now! Let every day be the day of beginning again of loving Christ a little more, of hungering for Him a little more, of turning our face to Him. To accomplis...

[The bombardment of unending noise reaches a crescendo during political campaigns, especially when the position being sought is the Presidency of these [un]United States. To be sure that we will never have to subject ourselves to even a moment of silence, we can turn on our television sets at any time of the day and night and have our ears attacked by a limitless number of self-proclaimed expert talking heads whose primary job is not to convey truth or to ask probing and intelligent questions that would assist at getting to the truth, but rather to fill the screen with divisive noise. This unending noise, Robert Cardinal Sarah reminds us in The Power of Silence – Against the Dictatorship of Noise , prevents us from ever hearing God since “We encounter God only in the eternal silence in which He abides.” This good and gifted Cardinal is not the first, and will certainly not be the last soul, to encourage us to rediscover the sacredness and necessity of silence.  ...