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December 9, 2009
Advent Weekday (St. Juan Diego, hermit)

Read

Read the fourth lesson from this year’s celebration of “Lessons and Carols.”

 

 

Daily Readings

Pray

Prayer to St. Juan Diego on his Canonization
"Happy Juan Diego, true and faithful man! We entrust to you our lay brothers and sisters so that, feeling the call to holiness, they may imbue every area of social life with the spirit of the Gospel.
Bless families, strengthen spouses in their marriage, and sustain the efforts of parents to give their children a Christian upbringing. Look with favor upon the pain of those who are suffering in body or in spirit, on those afflicted by poverty, loneliness, marginalization or ignorance. May all people, civic leaders and ordinary citizens, always act in accordance with the demands of justice and with respect for the dignity of each person, so that in this way peace may be reinforced."
(Pope John Paul II, July 31, 2002)

Reflect

Pope Benedict XVI , St. Paul, 78
Receiving Hope
Paul reminds the Ephesians that before their encounter with Christ they were “without hope and without God in the world” (Eph 2:12). . . . To come to know God—the true God—means to receive hope.

Encyclical letter On Christian Hope (Spe Salvi), no. 3
November 30, 2007

Homily on the fortieth anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council
December 8, 2005

Act

Brainstorm ideas for how you can live out your call to “imbue every area of social life with the spirit of the Gospel” as an active citizen. For ideas about how you can put your faith in action, visit the Faithful Citizenship website. (www.faithfulcitizenship.org) For junior high youth, teens and young adults, visit the Faithful Citizenship youth website. (www.faithfulcitizenship.org/youth).