Category: Schonborn, Cristoph Cardinal

You are unrepeatable

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

from Christoph Cardinal Schönborn’s We Have Found Mercy:

The Divine Mercy is a profound, total devotion that is committed, lasting, faithful, and quite personal for the one to whom it is addressed.  Nothing could be more foreign to it than a vague feeling of ‘goodwill’ toward the whole world.  The one on whom God bestows his mercy is intended, addressed and loved as an unrepeatable person.  Mercy does not turn the one to whom it is shown into an object but rather touches the person in his center, in his dignity.

Jesus is, so to speak, the incarnation of God’s Mercy.  In him, God cares, not about mankind as an abstract entity, but rather about every individual person.  He has shown me mercy.  Through Christ I become the recipient of God’s care, and, on the other hand, I am addressed personally.

Always leave your heart ajar

Sr. Dorcee, belovedLeave a comment

We all live in a “little town”, and we all have to do ordinary things–yet that is exactly where the Christ Child wants to be born.  Today’s poem for Sunday is all about that:

Housekeeper

This is my little town,
My Bethlehem,
And here, if anywhere,
My Christ Child
Will be born.

I must begin
To go about my day–
Sweep out the inn,
Get fresh hay for the manger
And be sure
To leave my heart ajar
In case there may be travelers
From afar.

        ~Elizabeth Rooney

And as Cardinal Schonborn says in his commentary on today’s Gospel: “Doing the simple things is not always simple, but it is certainly the best way to prepare for Christmas.”