How does your heart respond to these words?

Come, Lord Jesus! Is there a longing in your heart for the Lord to heal and make new an area of your life? Is there a conflict that you are experiencing that you can’t find the solution to? Have you invited Jesus into that situation? If you aren’t praying, “Come, Lord Jesus” throughout the day, I invite you to make it a new practice in your life. Why? Because Jesus can do something about it. What areas in your life really need Jesus? Pray, “Come, Lord Jesus” and give Jesus permission to bring healing, new life and new direction in your lives this week.

Connected to this, I want to share from one of Bishop Barron’s daily gospel reflections that I read recently. Enjoy...

I don’t think it is the least bit accidental that when Paul wrote back to the community at Thessaloniki (the earliest Christian document we have), his major motif was the end of the world as we know it and the longing for Christ to come to remake the cosmos. When Paul speaks in that text of Christ arriving on the clouds and the Christians going up to meet Him in the air, he is not predicting a great escape from the world of matter; rather, he is envisioning a welcome committee of believers moving out to escort into the world its new King.

The entire Bible ends on a note not so much of triumph and completion as longing and expectation: “Come, Lord Jesus.” From the very beginning of the Christian dispensation, followers of the risen Jesus have been waiting. Paul, Augustine, Chrysostom, Agnes, Thomas Aquinas, Clare, Francis, John Henry Newman, and Simone Weil have all waited for the second coming and have hence all been Advent people. During this season, let us join them, turning our eyes and hearts upward and praying, “Come, Lord Jesus.”

This reflection is beautiful because it calls us to turn our hearts to Jesus and really invite Him into our lives. On December 15 at 7:00 p.m. in the Church, St. Francis de Sales will be offering an evening of healing, where in front of Jesus in the Eucharist, we can turn our eyes and hearts upward to Him and shout out “Come, Lord Jesus.” Whatever the need may be—spiritual, physical, emotional, psychological—in a spirit of openness, give Jesus permission to do what He does best: heal.

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus said to them in reply, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them. And blessed is the one who takes no offense at Me." This is the Jesus we are walking and working with. He did it then. He can do it now!

Come, Lord Jesus!
Fr. Jeremy