Simple Joys

Today I am delighting in the simple pleasures and home joys of life...

...watching four small boys play "battle" as only little boys can

...sharing music (and laughter) with my students

...sending love to my sisters via text (though 700 miles separates us)

...chatting on the phone with my great-uncle and aunt down in Louisiana and being thoroughly entertained by their endearing Southern charm and drawl!

...greetings and hugs to gals at the University choir after not seeing each other all summer

...walking amidst the late summer trees under an azure sky

...watching five beautiful children tonight: giggling over innocent amusements with Miss 9-yr-old and Miss 11-yr-old, cuddling Mr. 4-yr-old and listening to him philosophize

...playing in bread dough with Mr. 7-yr-old and Mr. 4-yr-old, who at one point were constructing a cave and tunnel in it :)

...laying in our new hammock under a round, glowing moon

...just being a child of God.

"...I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly."

(John 10:10)

Advent Message from Papa Benedict

VATICAN CITY, NOV. 30, 2009 (Zenit.org).- As the Church begins Advent, Benedict XVI is recalling that it is a season to recall how God comes to visit us.

The Pope said this during a homily at First Vespers on Saturday, with which the Church began Advent and the new liturgical year.

The Holy Father reflected on the etymology of the word "advent" from the Latin adventus. "With the word adventus an attempt was made essentially to say: God is here, he has not withdrawn from the world, he has not left us alone," he explained. "Although we cannot see or touch him, as is the case with tangible realities, he is here and comes to visit us in multiple ways."

The Pontiff added that the expression advent also includes "visitatio, which means simply and properly 'visit."

"In this case," he said, "it is a visit of God: He enters my life and wants to address me."

Taking time
Benedict XVI acknowledged that we all experience "having little time for the Lord and little time for ourselves."

"We end up by being absorbed in 'doing,'" he said. "Is it not true that often activity possesses us, that society with its many interests monopolizes our attention? Is it not true that we dedicate much time to amusements and leisure of different kinds? Sometimes things 'trap' us."

In this scenario, the Holy Father said, Advent "invites us to pause in silence to grasp a presence." He continued: "It is an invitation to understand that every event of the day is a gesture that God directs to us, sign of the care he has for each one of us. How many times God makes us perceive something of his love! To have, so to speak, an 'interior diary' of this love would be a beautiful and salutary task for our life! Advent invites and stimulates us to contemplate the Lord who is present. Should not the certainty of his presence help us to see the world with different eyes? Should it not help us to see our whole existence as a 'visit,' as a way in which he can come to us and be close to us, in each situation?"

Advent is furthermore a time of joy, the Pontiff said. It is "the time of the presence and the expectation of the eternal. Precisely for this reason it is, in a particular way, the time of joy, of an internalized joy, that no suffering can erase. Joy because of the fact that God became a child. This joy, invisibly present in us, encourages us to walk with confidence."

And this joy, he concluded, finds a model and support in the Virgin Mary, "through whom the Child Jesus has been given to us." He prayed: "May she, faithful disciple of her Son, obtain for us the grace to live this liturgical time vigilant and diligent in waiting."

~from zenit.org