The following thoughts are from the Chaplain of the Rorate Caeli Purgatorial Society -- a 27-year-old American diocesan priest who remembers the Society at every Mass he says, and will continue to do so for as long as our Good God allows him to minister to His children. That's a lot of Masses.
And don't forget to send in the names of the souls you want enrolled.
A reminder on how to enroll souls: please email me at cpaulitz@yahoo.com and submit as follows: "name, state, country." If you want to enroll entire families, simply write in the email: "The Pacelli family, Rome, Italy". Individual names are preferred. Be greedy -- send in as many as you wish and forward this posting to friends as well.
Chaplain's Reflection:
The day is at hand!
Our Advent observance invites us to rise from sleep and to prepare the ways of the Only-Begotten to prepare the path to Jerusalem.
Jerusalem was the historical center of the coming of the promised Messiah. It was the place in time and space where Our Savior taught, and died, and rose to life again. But it also is a foreshadowing of the Jerusalem of the Church -- the Jerusalem in which the promise of salvation is extended to people of all nations.
All mankind is called to that new Jerusalem -- the Mystical Body -- in which we may receive the divine life in abundance. As the Church will be renewed at the end of time, we too can point to that new Jerusalem that will come to reality when Our Lord returns to judge the living and dead.
Cardinal Mercier, the late Archbishop of Mechelen, invites us to "enter into the sanctuary of our baptized souls," that inner sanctuary which is also the new Jerusalem. It is the Jerusalem of our baptized souls where our Savior wishes to dwell. In the kingdom of grace that is the Church, the wonders that Our Lord conveys to John the Baptist are still occurring.
The Lord heals those who are blind to heavenly realities, He bids us to walk in the ways of salvation, and makes the dead in sin arise to the new life of grace.
During this season of Advent, as we prepare for the Christmas mystery, let us drink from that stream of grace which the Sacrament of the Altar brings to us. As we prepare for the coming of Our Savior, we remember in prayer our deceased brothers and sisters who have traveled before us on our common pilgrimage to heaven. We pray that they too may be purified and that their path from death into eternal life may be made straight.
May Christ, coming in humility in the crib of Bethlehem, purify His Church for His coming in glory.
Regem venturum Dominum, venite, adoremus!
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