Matthew

As we enter into the final 3-day stretch until Christmas, we hear in today’s gospel all the words that are too familiar from St. Elizabeth. “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

Rejoice! We have made it halfway through this season of Advent, and now the Church has shifted her focus from the second coming of Christ to the first. We hear in the second reading from St. Paul writing to the Corinthians, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice!”

John of the Cross is a mystical doctor of the Church. As a “doctor,” his teaching has comprehensive and universal value. As a “mystic,” his life displays unspeakable secrets of union with God. As a mystical doctor, then, he uniquely teaches us what cannot be taught; he authoritatively speaks to us of what cannot be spoken.

The Blessed Virgin Mary leads us Godward through her shining example and powerful intercession. As Dominican Friars we lead others to Mary, so that she can show us all the Way—her son, Jesus Christ.

A little slice of heaven is how one pilgrim described this year’s Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage—a day-long gathering of more than 3,000 pilgrims with the Dominican Friars and the Blessed Mother at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.

It was a Marian summer for The Hillbilly Thomists, a band of eight Dominican friars, who spent much of their summer touring with their new album Marigold, whose title song is an homage to the Blessed Mother.

If you travel about 100 miles northeast of New York City, you might stumble across the Dominican Monastery of Our Lady of Grace in North Guilford, Connecticut. These Dominican nuns have been praying there since 1947. What many people don’t know is that the nuns of the Dominican Order are a vital part of the success of preaching for the salvation of souls.

On this second Sunday of Advent, we hear in the gospel that St. John the Baptist preached a baptism of repentance in order to fulfill what the prophet Isaiah wrote “A voice of one crying out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.’”

In this first half of the season of Advent, the Church contemplates the second coming of Christ. In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus depicts what his second coming will be like saying, “And then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.

We are blessed to have over 50 young men in formation and we ask for your prayers—that these men persevere in their path to the priesthood.

When we bow before the Presence of God in himself and in others, the divine glory shines through us to those around us. We discover that to serve is to reign and to be humble is to be a king.

The Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage, is an annual national pilgrimage celebrating the Rosary at Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C.