Tag: Catholic

Guide to Goodness

Day by Day Finding God’s Goodness

Smitten With Goodness

With the weight of the past few years, do you feel you’ve been living the good life? How would you like to spend a few minutes each day cultivating a life worth living. Living the good life is the journey to find the divine within. It’s not so much looking outside ourselves but inviting our Creator to reveal the goodness present in the day-to-day moments of our life. Too often we are hurried, unconscious or unaware of the gifts of peace, hope and joy that are ours for the taking if only we seek the things that feed our soul such as our relationship with God. The whole of the Bible is about how we can restore and build this relationship with the Divine. God, who is always good, constantly seeks us and is ever present. It is we who turn away, following our own agenda and trying to fill a God-size hole with things other than grace and divine love.

Continue reading “Day by Day Finding God’s Goodness” →
Gift of Goodness

Gift of Goodness – December 31, 2021

Smitten With Goodness
A bit of goodness to start your day.

The Eternal Word Becomes Flesh

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be.  What came to be through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race; the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 

John 1:1-5

On this, the seventh day of the Octave of Christmas, we are given a mystery.  The mystery of the “Word.”  It’s a language that is veiled and yet revealing at the same time.  It presents Jesus to us as the “Word.”  He is the Word who takes on flesh and is eternal, from “the beginning with God.”  The passage goes on to say that the Word was God and that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

Lord, Jesus, Eternal Word of the Father, I thank You for coming among us and for making Your eternal dwelling present to us.  Thank You for the great mystery of Christmas.  Help me to always celebrate this season with great joy and gratitude, and also with a sense of mystery.  May I always realize that the mystery of Christmas will never be fully understood.  May this mystery draw me closer each and every day so that I may fall more deeply in love with You, my eternal God.  Jesus, I trust in You.

Gift of Goodness

Gift of Goodness – December 29, 2021

Smitten With Goodness
A bit of goodness to start your day.

Simeon’s Prophecy 

Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel.  

Luke 2:29-32
Continue reading “Gift of Goodness – December 29, 2021” →
Gift of Goodness

Gift of Goodness – December 28, 2021

Smitten With Goodness
A bit of goodness to start your day.

From Tragedy to Glory – Feast of the Holy Innocents

When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious.  He ordered the massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had ascertained from the magi.  

Matthew 2:16

Today on the fourth day of the Octave of Christmas, we see out of envy and hatred, Herod had countless innocent children killed in an attempt to eliminate Jesus, the newborn King.  How is this same envy and hatred playing out in our world today?

Continue reading “Gift of Goodness – December 28, 2021” →
Gift of Goodness

Gift of Goodness – December 27, 2021

Smitten With Goodness
A bit of goodness to start your day.

Contemplating the Eternal Word

Beloved: What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we looked upon and touched with our hands concerns the Word of life—for the life was made visible; we have seen it and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was made visible to us—what we have seen and heard we proclaim now to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; for our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.  We are writing this so that our joy may be complete.  

1 John 1:1-4
Continue reading “Gift of Goodness – December 27, 2021” →
Gift of Goodness

Christ is Born For Us – Come Let Us Adore Him

Smitten With Goodness

Gloria in Excelsis Deo!

The angel said to the shepherds, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people.  For today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.  And this will be a sign for you: you will find an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.”  And suddenly there was a multitude of the heavenly host with the angel, praising God and saying: “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” Luke 2:10-14

Glory to God in the highest!  The celebration of the glorious birth of Christ the Lord has begun…Merry Christmas!