"If you wish to go to extremes, let it be in sweetness, patience, humility and charity." St. Philip Neri
Today's Meditation
“Advent is like the final hour before the breaking of the dawn. Our prayer…is simple: “Grant, we pray, that we may look forward in joy to the glorious Nativity of Christ.” Constantly, the season reminds us to think about where we are directing our attention and invites us to lift our gaze toward those first streaks of light on the horizon. The coming birth of Christ is both the answer to our longing and the fulfillment of the promises of God woven throughout scripture.”
—Fr. John Burns, p.41
Daily Verse
"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and return not thither but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it." Isaiah 55:9-11
St. Dominic of Silos
Saint of the Day
St. Dominic of Silos (1000–1073 A.D.) was born in Navarre, Spain, to a peasant family. He grew up herding his father's sheep in the Pyrenees mountains. This work endeared in him a love of solitude, leading him to enter the local Benedictine monastery in Navarre. He eventually became its prior, but was driven out when the King of Navarre seized its lands. Dominic then fled to another monastery under the protection of King Ferdinand I of Leon. Though the monastery was dilapidated, he became abbot and restored it both materially and spiritually, turning it into a significant center of scholarship and charity to the poor. The funds of the monastery were used to ransom Christian captives who were enslaved by Muslims. St. Dominic of Silos was known during his life and after death as a miracle worker, making him a popular Spanish saint. The Spanish mother of St. Dominic de Guzmán, founder of the Dominican Order, prayed for a son at St. Dominic of Silos' shrine; when she conceived, she named her son after him. St. Dominic of Silos' special patronage became connected with pregnancy, and until 1931 his crozier was used to bless the queens of Spain, and was placed beside their beds when they were in labor. St. Dominic of Silos is also the patron of prisoners and shepherds. His feast day is December 20.
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