Author: Lana Kaczmarek

“I proclaim to you good news of great joy.” Our gracious Lord, our sovereign King, our holy Ruler, our soul’s provider, comes, He advents, He waits no longer. He makes haste to come to us and to announce to us, present to us, reveal to us, proclaim to us good news of great joy. The Good News of the greatest Joy! God gives us the holy and sacred proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is the cause of our joy. The great joy we celebrate this sacred season. A time of great joy and joyful expression. A joyous celebration! The time has finally come. Its advent is finally here. No more waiting. Time for celebrating. The time has come for us to lift-up our hearts purified and prepared in the Advent Season. The time has arrived to be joyful in song, exultant in praise, jubilant in gratitude and filled with thanksgiving. This is the reason why we are so merry. Why our happy hearts and joyful voices sing out and sing “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will.” God is proclaiming his saving plan. He is sharing with us the gift of salvation. “For a child is born to us, a son is given us.” He comes bearing great gifts of great joy. He brings the joyful anticipation of a long-awaited promise; the deliverance of a hope prayed for by so many, so long ago. The hope that we are not alone, never abandoned, always cared for, and forever provided for. A hope that never disappoints. This child brings peace. Not the peace of this world but the peace that is eternal, joy-filled and everlasting. A peace that assures us and reassures us that God has come to heal our broken hearts and provide the grace and strength we need to forgive ourselves and to forgive one another. This child comes to reconcile us to the Father, to ourselves and everyone else. This child brings joy, so much joy, Christmas joy. He breathes joy. He shares happiness. He makes Christmas merry. He makes our lives happy once again. This child brings the greatest gift, the greatest joy, the greatest news. God loves us. He has always loved us. He will never stop loving us. His love has been poured into our hearts and now nothing can separate us from the love of God. Wow! That is good news of great joy! There is good cause to celebrate with great joy. God loves us! Merry Christmas!

“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name Him Emmanuel.” Have you ever stopped, really stopped to consider your thought process and enter more fully into a moment of true reflection to contemplate Emmanuel, God with us? What does God with us mean to you? What is God inviting you to consider, think about, or contemplate when scripture declares, “God is with you” or the priest says, “the Lord be with you” or Jesus says, “behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age?” What does that say to you? Is there something you wish to say or something you wish to consider in the fact that nothing can separate us from the love of God? That God is with you always, desires to be with you always, longs to be with you always, hopes to be with you always. The essence of God has been poured into our hearts. His Spirit moves and breathes inside of us, dwells inside of us, lives, and ministers inside of us, cries, and moans inside of us. God sees what you are seeing. God hears what you are listening to. God is aware of ever thought that passes through your mind. Every image you meditate on, color, contemplate, dress or undress. God is actively present to every conversation that takes place. Every word, every thought and all that you imagine. God is present when you rest and sleep. He is there during work, school, or leisure. God is present to you in those long, dreary, lonely sleepless nights. There throughout the burden of anxiousness, worry, concern. There in the addictions that haunt you and call to you when darkness and fatigue creep in during those dark, cold endless night. God is present like the dawn to welcome you into a new day filled with many gracious opportunities to welcome Him throughout your day. God is always present to hear and listen to you, to love and forgive you, which is what you really need. God is someone who is always faithfully there and available to you, to care and listen to you, no matter the circumstance, situation or what you are experiencing. God is always there for you. God is always here for us. What have you asked for Christmas this year? New wheels or a gold shiny thing? Perhaps the latest electronic gizmo or something new to wear or put on? Why not ask God for the grace to make you more aware that he is always with you?

“They will bloom with abundant flowers and rejoice with joyful song.” A song, a simple melody, a simple note, a joyous phase, need not be so complicated. It can in all simplicity, be a joyful rhythm, a sorrowful note, an upbeat rhythm, a simple tune. A hymn we can follow, perhaps dance a line or two. The depths of the lyrics, the emotion of the words, the art of the rhythm and rhyme. A heartfelt story, a difficult situation, an unpleasant experience, a heart break, and a breakthrough all at the same time. An intimate experience, a sorrowful longing being expressed. A joyful lyric moving us pass our heartaches and pain. A joyful song calling us to worship, prayer and praise. To dance and rejoice, to cry or be sad. To sing-along, hum-a-long, or simply be silent and still. We sing with our hearts, with our souls, with our spirits, with our lips. Our silence also sings with a smile and perhaps some tears. We sing when we are happy, when we are sad, when we are joyful, when we are angry, upset, or glad. It helps to sing in difficult moments and challenging times. When words escape us, a song gives us the right words. Somehow the songwriter knows our joys and celebrations, our aches, and pains. The lyrics express what we are unable to express, describe or say. The song speaks to us, and the song speaks for us. It speaks our language, our emotions, our inner most feelings, thoughts, and desires. It reads our hearts and expresses our mood. It knows our thoughts, every emotion, sentiment, and attitude. A song simply is a powerful tool. In Advent, we are invited to bring the song down a notch or two. To be simple in the instrumentation, perhaps chant a hymn or two. To remain reflective, spiritual, prayerful, watchful. To sing quietly from within. To listen to ancient hymns placed in us so long ago. A tiny whisper, an ancient call to repent, return, and to believe. A heartfelt song of mercy. A joyful hymn of gratitude, thanksgiving, and peace. It is a melodious tune sung by the heavenly choir of Angels and Saints. We join them at every Mass, with our family and friends who have gone before us in hope and faith. Together we rejoice and joyfully sing: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord, God of Hosts, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.”

“Whatever was written previously was written for our instruction.” This Advent Season, our Lord encourages us by His own words to not lose heart but to take courage, and keep watch over your thoughts, feelings, and desires and to be vigilant and to pray with unwavering hope and joyful expectation of His return. “That by endurance and by the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” and joyfully anticipate with great longing the Advent of our Lord and the welcoming of his glorious and eternal kingdom into our hearts, our lives, and into our death and our life eternal. Scripture is not merely words on a page or a document written to capture what history wishes to say or tell us. Scripture is not simply a manuscript highlighting ancient biblical events, or a book sharing a family’s ancestral heritage or an explanation of ancestral traditions or the capturing of prophetic utterings. Scripture is so much more. Scripture is alive with angelic songs and hymns. It breathes and whispers God’s Word into our ears, into our hearts and into our imagination. This Word cries out for our attention, our love, and our salvation. This Word heals, lifts, forms, informs, teaches, and educates. The Word of God reminds us of an ancient love so old beyond words, description or telling. Scripture is a faith-filled and faithful person. It is a prayer, a heavenly encounter, a necessity and need. Scripture is ever so holy, so pure. It is a deep personal and intimate friendship, an eternal relationship with the Word of God. Scripture was written for you, lived for you, fulfilled for you, gathered for you, recalled for you, proclaimed for you, captured so that you may always remember, be reminded and never forget that Scripture has saved you and promised you an undying life in eternal splendor with God and all the holy people of God. Are you ready Scripture asks? Are you truly ready if the Advent of Christ was today, tomorrow, the next day? Can you say with absolute certainty, you are good and that all is truly well with your soul? That your heart is pure, ready, and fit for a king and not just any king but the Lord of lords and the King of kings! Scripture invites you to pay close attention this Advent Season. The prophets of old, the saints of yesteryear, the evangelizers and gospel writers all encourage and inspire you to be ready, to be attentive to the words spoken and proclaimed: “Prepare the way of the Lord.”

“You must be prepared.” Like the Kingdom of God, like the Sacred Heart of Jesus, like an intimate relationship with God and with His Holy Family, Advent is a sacred time and a holy season we must enter into and pray for the grace that Advent may graciously enter our hearts, our homes, our schools, our workplaces and our families. Advent draws us and calls us to be still and to enter that quiet place inside of us reserved for God. Are you truly ready to welcome your King and the gift of healing and peace His presence brings? Can you imagine Mary and Joseph not having a place to welcome the newborn King? Can you imagine your heart as a home, a place of prayer, an altar, a manger? Our imagination is such a precious tool. We could use our spiritual imagination to imagine the scenes of scripture. What it was like, who was there, what they said, what they experienced. By using our spiritual imagination, we can be with God and God can be with us in every situation. We can see and experience where God is acting in our lives and how His hand is guiding us. We can imagine what God’s beauty is like, what the people in Jesus’ time experienced, what heaven must look like. This brings us peace. Imagine God as a potter and we are clay. What good is clay on its own? What can it do on its own? What can it create on its own? Nothing. It will dry, crack and be good for nothing. However, in the hands of God, in the hands of our Creator, all things are possible. Imagine this Advent, being molded into a font to hold holy water or a dish that can feed the hungry or hold the Body of Christ. How about being molded into a cup to give water to the needy or a chalice to hold the precious Blood of Christ or being molded into the image of Christ in a manger or crucified on the Cross. All the beautiful possibilities if we allow ourselves this sacred season to be formed, shaped, and even chiseled into the precious and beautiful image we were created in. Imagine being used for the purpose you were destined for, to love, welcome and serve our Lord in the depths of your heart and in the people, you encounter in life. “So too, you also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

“We will go up to the house of the Lord.” At all times or perhaps most of the time, we are outwardly focused. We tend to live life outside of ourselves, interiorly thinking but casting outwardly to the wind every thought, feeling, ambition, emotion, opinion, or desire to anyone who will listen. Even though we mask our disorders and hide our secrets, we still project our hopes, dreams, and sensuality to and towards a virtual outer world filled with virtual pleasure and not so real AI personalities. Our dreams are enormous as wide as the ocean and deeper than the bluest sea. We reach for the stars, we contemplate endless opportunities, our aspirations higher than the tallest mountain range. We contemplate endless voyages, meditate on what it would be like if I lived over there, met someone else, had another assignment, worked a different job, had a different family, looked like her or have what he has. Always living outwardly, ignoring what is on the inside. We live life on the outside wishing we could be somewhere else or be someone other than ourselves. We tend to look out there, over there, everywhere, and anywhere but on the interior inside where life counts and begins. Our interior life is most precious to us and to God Himself. Life is breathed into our hearts, into our lungs, into our lives, into the very core and essence of our being. What happens on the inside, is taking place right now, is most important and affects our whole life. The interior life should attract us, but the outside world causes us not to want to listen or pay attention but rather distracts and pulls us away. We tend to live in the future or live in the past. Always on the go, always on the move. Thinking about this thing or that thing or this person or that person or this situation or that situation, never even leaving the room or getting up from the bed or the chair. Living life on the outside yet never living life on the inside. Deep in our interior life is where God lives, where He dwells. Our interior life is God’s home, His happy abode. God is interior living, the interior life. He is heart, spirit, breath, soul, being, prayer and presence all lived on the inside where life takes place. Go up to God’s house in the interior sacred space where He dwells, sings, shares, lives, and prays with you, in the secret silence of your interior life and heart.

“Many will come in my name, saying, I am he, and the time has come. Do not follow them!” Our thoughts are fading and fleeting but also our thoughts can be inspiring and give God glory. It all depends on who is speaking, the person we are listening to and the person we are following in thoughts, in words, actions and deeds whether we give God all the glory or are tempted to speak without even thinking. Our thoughts are originating but not originating from us. Either God is inspiring you or the enemy is tempting you. Your thought then follows. Where it leads you depends on the source and the outcome. The inspirations we receive, accept, and cooperate with, lead us to good things, good opportunities, good insights and bear good fruit that is pleasing to God. This gives glory to God and grace to those who receive it. On the other hand, unfortunately, thoughts can be fading and fleeting, misguided and misleading. These are the temptations that cause us to fall, be inflated, cause us to procrastinate, become slothful and lazy. Temptations that cause us to be suspicious, dissatisfied, unmotivated and usually complaining. Temptations that cause us to want more, give less, to address others harshly, and usually with disrespect. This is the bad, evil, and rotten fruit our thoughts could produce when we allow our thoughts to cling to what is wrong or not healthy for our souls or our relationship with God. Tempting thoughts usually collide with the pride inside us. When they connect with our wounded ego and selfish pride, suddenly we erroneously think somehow, we know better, we know more than others, we are always right and never wrong or in error. We suddenly believe we can predict the future or pretend we can forecast someone’s misfortune or even give advice that is fraudulent at best, misleading and deceptive. That is what pride does when it is inflated at the ego and tempted with pride. We become as Saint Paul calls, unruly, disordered, busybodies, know-it-alls. Our Lord was very clear when He said from the Wood of the Cross, “Father, they know not what they do.” He even told Saint Peter regarding the beloved disciple, “What concern is it of yours? You follow me.” Even to the disciples He said they did not know the time nor the day the Lord would return but rather to stay awake, watch and pray. The thoughts we follow are the outcomes we perceive and believe so be inspired and let Jesus lead.

“God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress.” A priest once shared along my spiritual journey of discernment and the time I began to encounter a true spiritual awakening, a most profound insight that has changed my life and has enhanced and enriched my true identity as a beloved child of God, formed the basis of my spirituality and prayer life and has increased my faith, my hope, my belief, my confidence, my longing for and trust in God. He shared God’s name with me. God’s true name which is accessible to all, approachable always, a name one can call upon, rely upon and know that by His most sacred name, God is most present, attentive and always listening but a name that requires us also to be present, attentive and listening as well. He said, God is I AM. I am here, I am present, I am listening to you always. Listening attentively to your call, your worries, your concerns, your grumblings and all your fears. I AM here with you now. I AM here with you always. I AM here with you when you sleep and awaken. I AM here when you stress or are rejoicing. I AM here when you cry out or are laughing. I AM here when you live and when you are dying. I AM. He also shared that God’s name is not, I WAS, when you are stuck in your past, when you forget that God is with you and you rely on yourselves or turn to another to assist you and provide help or become your refuge instead of God. We think of God as I WAS when we dwell and live in the past. When we become overly consumed and overly worldly focused and centered on the past with all its hurts and failures, wounds, and disappointments, its unforgiveness and all our disordered desires and overt sinfulness, along with our most embarrassing moments and humiliating experiences. He said, I AM here with you always, for all the ages to come. My name is, I AM. I am not; I WAS. He also shared I am not, I WILL BE, when we are totally distracted, so focused on daydreaming, or insist on fantasizing about nudity, profanity, or disordered ambitions. I AM here present to you at this very moment and every moment and breath of life. I am not, I WILL BE, with your thoughts racing to the future without me, where your hopes rely on you or another rather than on me. 

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” For me and perhaps even for you, there is a clear distinction between “I want” and “I need.” Wants are those things that would be nice to have, perhaps from the excess we already have acquired or from the poverty of those things we desire to have. At times, our wants are just wishful thinking, like more money, a larger room, more space or a fantastic journey, vacation, voyage, or adventure. Wants can be those things that would be nice to have like good health, a long life, great neighbors, more time. Those things that would be good and beneficial to pray for. Unfortunately, at times our wants are desires that are for the most part vices and very bad for us like ambition, success at all costs, riches that do not belong to us or material wealth that belongs to another. Sometimes our wants become unnecessary necessities, sources of unsettling obsessions, things we must or are determined to have but do not really need or our gracious Lord would be happier for you not to take, obsess over, possess, or receive. Those things that would not be helpful to you, beneficial for your health or good for your spiritual life or journey. We really don’t need to list those out. You know what you do not have, should not obtain and those things that are not good for you, your happiness, or your family. Those things you would like to have or obtain by envy, jealously, greed, stealing, badmouthing, shaming, exhortation, lying, or using your cunning malicious intent or your amazing intellectual property or your physical body, beauty, money, or strength to obtain your passionate want to satisfy your disordered desire or your unnecessary need. We can live without all those things. We can live without sin. However, we cannot live without God. We really need Him, and He should be our greatest want and ultimate desire. God, our Good Lord, our Good Savior, our Good Leader, our Good Teacher, who is also the Good Shepherd the Father has sent to tend His sheep and feed His Lambs. Jesus provides all the Father has given Him to feed, nourish, care for, heal, reconcile, and bring back to life all God’s children back into the Father’s fold and to His loving embrace. In the end, what we really want is what we really need most, the Lord. His attentiveness, His presence, His compassion, kindness, pardon, and His peace. These we need. We can’t live without Him.

“The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal.” It is ever so sad to know and even to note how misunderstood prayer is. We never pray when we are supposed to, which is often and always. We tend to keep prayer in check by saying I prayed already, or I’ll pray later, or I am too busy to pray, or what is the use, is anyone really listening, God never answers my prayer. The precious gift of prayer is who God is, how he shares his gracious gifts with us, receives our praises and complaints, provides for our every need in super abundance and sanctifies our lives with his greatest desire which is to be united to us in holy communion and to be united to us in loving prayer. Prayer is so underutilized, neglected and even misused and prayed so incorrectly. As scripture notes and says, “we don’t pray as we ought,” so why not learn how to pray so that your opinion can be heard and God’s voice and loving response can make and save your day. So, what is prayer or rather who is prayer and how do we enter the intimate union prayer provides, initiates, and brings to us poor children left here in exile? To understand prayer, we need to understand God’s ways, his loving intention, the essence of his glory and the reason he loves. He simply is. That is, it. He is. When God declared, “I AM” he simply declared who he is, loving, caring, responsive, sensitive, present, listening, faithful, communion. That is the heart of what and who prayer is. Love, just simply wants to love sacrificially, unconditionally, and faithfully always. Prayer then just simply wants to pray always, sacrificially, unconditionally, and faithfully all the time into eternity. Prayer is the Word of God made flesh. He is an attentive ear, a listening heart, the most faithful of friends. Prayer like love, is constant, always, unceasing, persevering, endures all things and never fails. The depth of prayer navigates through the worst of storms and pierces the darkest of clouds. Prayer soothes the soul and calms our mind and spirit so overwhelmed by worry, anxiousness, fear, sadness, and grief. Prayer penetrates those broken and hard-to-get-to places in our hearts and lives that lack love, wisdom, kindness, understanding and charity and our great need to be heard, nourished and tended to. Prayer cuts through the lies that consume us and the pride that overwhelms us. Prayer always saves the day.