Blessed First Sunday of Advent to all – Believer, Questioner or Skeptic, Seeker or Lost, Curious or Bored, Pilgrims or Wanderers - Blessed Advent!
Blessed First Sunday of Advent to all who celebrate and mark this season of preparation for both the End Times (it can't come soon enough) and the Incarnation of the Word. A Year ago I whimsically hope for Meteor 2024 to end the mess that is this current chapter of humanity and its stupidity. I am hopeful that the profound changes in the Trump administration will herald a new age, perhaps even golden (I am skeptical. I’d be happy with silver and could live with a copper or brass age) I do pray for the fulfillment of things as we know it. Every Disciple of the Master is longing for the day of His return and the fulfillment of this reality as we know it.
The 2nd Coming is the daily prayer of the church, MARANATHA! Come, Lord Jesus! While it is a day of trepidation for the unrepentant and self-absorbed; it is a day of joyful anticipation for those seeking the Living Truth, a day of unfailing hope for those who seek the Eternal Good, a day of unmarred consolation for those seeking the Overwhelming Beauty that is the Luminous and Numinous. We are preparing to say to the Luminous and Mysterious & His Word, THY WILL BE DONE, or the Holy One is preparing to say to us, they will be done. The later is the worst thing that could possibility happen to us. Our will has often been the most misguided and self-threatening part of the mystery of our person. That we have survived the days of bad judgment, mindless pursuit and arrogant assumptions is nothing short of miraculous. If we have learned from them, that at least is drawing some silver & gold out of the dross of experience.
It used to be after Thanksgiving that we got serious about Christmas, but now it seems to come earlier and earlier. Halloween barely gets by before it is pushed out of the way. The Christ-Mass is just another means for more materialism rather than personal growth and making a gift of yourself. Celebrating Christmas is great. Sharing gifts, especially with children, is a great expression and lesson in the joy of giving. In addition to making our list of Christmas presents, there are questions we might ask of our self. How can I make myself a better gift to you, how can I make our relationship a better gift in our shared life? What is one thing I can try to intentionally change to making the living with me better for you? The things of life are passing, the persons of life are enduring, and their impact can be life long and life altering. In our preachy world of puritanically groupthink and irrational herd-feel many more are prone to want to deliver a list of demands for improvements of others with little self-awareness of how they need to grow and change for the better. It has made our society more bitter & divided than ever. Introspection often melts before the constant march of the woke jihad, but it is not unstoppable. There is a foundation that pushes back and a resistance that does not yield. There are always signs of hope and Advent is a season of hope.
Happy Sunday ADD Irregulars, WSN Curators, Friends & Refugees, Phamily & Misfits, Awakened Wonders, Sippers and Unhypnotized! I pray you have a blessed day my dear digital neighbors.
Today marks the three hundred and thirtieth birthday of the Frenchman François-Marie Arouet, better known by his nom de plume, Voltaire (1694-1778).
Born into a bourgeois family during the reign of Louis XIV, the “Sun King” (r. 1643-1715), Voltaire suffered tragedy at a young age when his mother died. Never close with his father or brother, Voltaire exhibited a rebellious attitude toward authority from his youth. His brilliant mind was fostered in the care of the Society of Jesus, who introduced him to the joys of literature and theater. Despite his later criticisms against the Church, Voltaire, throughout his life, fondly recalled his dedicated Jesuit teachers.
Although he spent time as a civil servant in the French embassy to the Hague, Voltaire’s main love was writing—an endeavor where he excelled in various genres, including poetry, which led to his appointment as the royal court poet for King Louis XV. Widely recognized as one of the greatest French writers, and even hyperbolically referred to by ...
Padre - Tom Miller invites you to a Coffee Talk, Speakeasies, Schmoozes, Tea Times, Afterhours and other gatherings.
https://teams.live.com/meet/93792382189049?p=DiBHsYfuECPgDrG7vO
2026 Coffee Talk with the ADD Irregulars
Thursday, January 1, 2026
6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (CST)
Occurs every day starting 1/1 until 12/31/2027
Coffee Talk - Daily beginning at 6:00 AM Central Time Zone - USA
White Pilled Wednesday - A break from the heaviness of news and current events to focus upon things more personal & positive for the first hour of Coffee Talk.
Afternoon Chats - Most Tuesday, Friday & Sundays 2:00 PM Central
Other chats as posted in the community.
Good morning, digital neighbors! Happy Wednesday, my friends across the inter-webs! Today we celebrate the feast of St. Jerome, who gifted the early Church with the Vulgate, the Latin translation of Sacred Scripture from the Hebrew and Greek. It was not without its faults; to translate is to lose something in the process. There are subtleties of language and nuances of speech that do not always carry over from one language to another.
Jerome's big conversion moment was a dream in which Jesus told him that he loved Latin literature more than Him. And Jerome did love Latin; he was fond of Cicero, Virgil, and Horace, and many minor authors. He had difficulties with other languages and was not overly fond of Greek or Hebrew, but even with all his complaints, he strove to learn them so he could faithfully translate the Scriptures into Latin, making them available to any who wanted to read them in the common tongue of the West. The eastern part of the empire still relied on Greek as its common language.
His...
XIII
The Proud Minister
One day there came into the Garden a man in torn clothes badly bruised and cut, who said to the Lover, “In the name of the Beloved I demand your help.”
So the Lover and the Disciple let him in and dressed his wounds and prepared the best of the vegetables from the Garden for him to eat. When his wounds had been dressed and he had eaten and rested the Lover asked him how he had fallen into this plight, to which the man replied, “I was Minister of the Beloved in a city near this place, where I preached His gospel and expounded His doctrine to the people. I pointed out to them how their sins had made them wholly hateful to the Beloved and how therefore they were utterly beyond the range of His love and He would condemn them to eternal torments, whereon some fell into despair and wept bitterly but many were angry. One day the magistrates called me before them and begged me to leave the city and preach elsewhere for they said I had made many people so angry and desperate that they feared there might be a riot and they might not be able to protect me but that I might suffer some injury. I, however, very zealous for the Beloved and believing that the magistrates only feared that their own sins might be proclaimed, preached the more vehemently, denounced the magistrates and made it abundantly clear that the whole wicked city was foredoomed to eternal punishment by the just provision of the Beloved. Whereon a mob, stirred up no doubt by the corrupt and venal magistrates, fell upon me with sticks and stones, nearly killing me and driving me out of the city in the state in which I came to you.”
“My friend,” said the Lover, “this was not a good deed of yours, for besides denying the unfathomable compassion of the Beloved, you have by your obstinacy caused these people to commit a grievous sin, and this cannot be pleasing to the Beloved, that through you who profess to be His minister the people should become worse. Surely you remember that He Himself said, ‘If they persecute you in one city flee to another.’”
Therefore the man was very angry, and cursing the Lover, said, “I see that I have had a very false report of you and I do not believe that you are a servant of the Beloved at all. When I came to you so injured for the Beloved’s sake you set before me only herbs and fruits although the garden is full of birds which you could have killed to make me a worthy meal. I shall proclaim everywhere that you are no true servant of the Beloved but a mere falterer who dares not suffer in the cause of the Beloved. Be sure that you are foreordained to eternal torments who suffer nothing here.”
For the man was so blinded by his own pride that he could not perceive the scars on the hands and feet and the brows of the Lover nor how the cloth beneath the armpits of his tunic was dyed with a red dye. So he went out of the Garden cursing and shouting.
But the Lover looked sad and said, “A man like this does much harm to the cause of the Beloved, for by thus speaking falsely about the Beloved he may bring men to fear Him but none to love Him, and by love alone can any man approach the Beloved.”
