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Paraphrased from the Office of Readings for Dec 24 a Sermon by St Augustine titled Truth has arisen from the Earth and on Dec 25th a Sermon by St. Leo the Great, Christian remember your Dignity.
Bethlehem House of Bread
The Birth of Jesus foreshadowed the Blessed Sacrament!
The old Hebrew name bĂȘth lehem,
meaning "house of bread"
has survived till the present day!
The scenes surrounding the Birth of Jesus
foreshadow the Blessed Sacrament!
After Jesus was born Our Lady wrapped him in swaddling-clothes and laid him in a manger, a place where animals were fed because there was no room for them in the inn. The manger represents the wood of the cross his future sacrifice in time for our sins. The manger also foreshadows the altars in every Catholic church. Here Jesus becomes incarnate again, this time hidden not in the flesh of a human nature but in the form of bread. At the words of consecration during every Holy Mass Jesus is born again and immolated. We are present at Bethlehem and at Calvary
Imagine that brute animals ate from the manger the creator of the world slept in! This scene showed us that God would feed his own creatures with the manna of His own Body and Blood so that we would be capable of entering into eternal life with Him. What a great gift of sheer grace for mortal man to become immortal with God!
Imagine that brute animals ate from the manger the creator of the world slept in! This scene showed us that God would feed his own creatures with the manna of His own Body and Blood so that we would be capable of entering into eternal life with Him. What a great gift of sheer grace for mortal man to become immortal with God!
The Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas once wrote: “Material food first
of all turns itself into the person who eats it, and as a consequence,
restores his losses and increases his vital energies. Spiritual food, on
the other hand, turns the person who eats it into Itself, and thus the
proper effect of the Eucharistic sacrament is the conversion of man into Christ, so
that he may no longer live for himself, but that Christ may live in
Him. We become sons and daughters of God. St. Augustine, recorded similar words
which he heard in the Spirit from the Lord. We find them in the account
of his conversion, the Confession: “I am the food of grown men. Grow,
and you shall feed upon me. You will not change me into yourself, as you
change food into your flesh, but you will be changed into me!”
He came unto His own
and His own received Him not!
"This is the judgment: that the light has entered the world, and men have
preferred darkness to light because their deeds were evil. Everybody
who does wrong hates the light and keeps away from it, for fear his
deeds may be exposed. But everybody who is living by the truth will
come to the light to make it plain that all he has done has been done
through God." John 3:19-21
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| Church of the Nativity the star indicates where Jesus was born |
This scripture is more true today than it was at the time of Our Lord's birth! Today at Christmas it is in the Blessed Sacrament that we can say that His own receive him not! Many take no heed of the gift God offers of Himself to men in this sacrament. Consequently, they do not approach the table of the Lord to be spiritually fed. Others receive him but are not prepared through sacramental confession so they are not free from sin. They do not recognize the body and blood of Christ the Word, the second person of the Trinity, who became flesh to unite himself to our flesh. They do not discern THE HIDDEN JESUS underneath the sacramental veil. Sin has blinded them. Yes they receive but the effects on their souls are different. Those prepared to enter into communion with Christ receive unto eternal life. Those: "Who eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the
Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the
Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment (damnation) to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord." 1 Corinthians 11:27
Jesus in his public ministry
Calls himself the Bread of Life!
John 6:48-53
I
am the bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness,
and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a
man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down
from heaven: if any man eats of this bread, he shall live for ever: and
the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life
of the world. Then
Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh
of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
If you read further in this passage you see that many of the disciples think this a “hard teaching” and they “walked
with him no more.” And Jesus let them leave. He did not stop to tell them he was only kidding he let them leave. Afterward, Jesus turned to the Apostles and asked if they would leave
also? Peter responded, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words
of everlasting life.” Unfortunately, we see this exact scenario today.
Many Christians have left the Church or worse remain within her ranks and desecrate the Blessed Sacrament. Intentional desecration is not only a mortal sin but also incurs the penalty of excommunication latae sententiae. They don’t believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the
Eucharist and are destroying the faith of others by their bad examples.
The battle of the light against the darkness!
You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. Ps 90:8
Christmas is a joyful season of light for those with faith. But we cannot pretend like one sleeping that the world continues to sit on a precipice prefer darkness to light. So many dangers stand before us in the world. Disasters man made and God sent in nature. Will we heed the Angels warnings at Fatima in 1916 to make reparation to Our Eucharistic Lord for the outrages, sacrileges and in differences by which He is offended? Will we hear the plea from the Heart of Mary: " To amend our lives and stop offending the Lord for He is already grievously offended? Or, will we go merrily on our way without a care, right up to the chastisements sure to come, prefigured in the miracle of the sun.
Let us Awake Now and let Christ
the true light of the world enlighten you!
Once more let us hear the cry to Awake. Awake now, you who sleep,
rise up from the death of sin and Christ will enlighten you! We would suffer
everlasting unhappiness and would not have hope to return to life if God had
not shared in our death. Let us prepare the way for the new spring time of faith that Bl. John Paul II and other holy souls saw from a distance. Let us prepare first and foremost by Eucharistic reparation. It is a spiritual battle we are in and we must use the spiritual weapons the church has given us. Including the Rosary our spiritual machine gun. If every Catholic committed to one 5 decade rosary every day that battle would be won. Families give up an hour of TV and pray for each others needs for the church and our country. We have to account to God for time ill spent!
God himself will fight for us the battle to dispel the darkness in the world. But we must prove ourselves worthy of His interventions. God will restore the dignity of human life from conception to natural death. The devil hates Imago Dei--The image of God in man. God will help us but we must help Him. Let us first restore Him to his royal throne in our parish churches and chapels. Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Jesus who became flesh and slept in a manger in a stable and now dwells with us till the end of time.Jesus the second person of the Holy Trinity---He is not a piece of bread to be trampled under our feet because we no longer recognize Him in the particles that fall from our hands. or worse in the particles we leave behind in unpurified pyx's and we carry God into unspeakable places. May God forgive our spiritual blindness. Pray for priests and for bishops who do nothing and let the evils continue. The priests for those they appoint to be Eucharistic ministers and bishops for all the Eucharistic Ministers in their dioceses. They will have to account for every lost particle on judgement day.
Let us Pray
O most loving and Blessed Infant Jesus, great God Lord of Heaven and Earth, who clothed and hid your divine majesty under a wonderful semblance of a child, and hide yourself today in our tabernacles day and night for our Divine food and consolation in this valley of tears. Your divine presence before whom the powers of Heaven tremble, and might kings of the earth bow, and evil spirits under the earth must bend. You became little as a child and in the Host that we might love you more ardently and serve you more faithfully That we may follow your example in childlike purity and love. I a poor sinner love you as the highest and most loving God and entrust myself to your infinite goodness. Teach me Jesus after your example to love humility and to crush my pride; to desire to grow in virtue and in childlike trust. Direct me Jesus and rule me, make me virtuous, so that I may please You and be little in this world and great in the next. Jesus meek and humble of heart! Make our hearts like unto thine!
The light still shines in the darkness, and the darkness has never (will never) put it out. John 1:5
Christmas Blessings to one and all! 
