'Tis the season for words of meaning...

Today we bring you a few words that we have been re-reading, re-writing and meditating. May they inspire and lead you through this Advent season.

"Advent's intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church's year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart's memory so that it can discern the star of hope...It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open the doors of hope." Pope Benedict.

"We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give." Winston Churchill

"My inheritance is the Lord, says my soul; that is why I will wait. The Lord is good to those who hope in Him, to the soul that seeks Him. It is good to wait in silence for God's salvation" St Hillary of Poitiers

"Thou who wast rich beyond splendor, all for love's sake became poor; thrones for a manager didst surrender, sapphire-paved courts for stable floor." Frank Houghton

"No one has ever become poor from giving." Anne Frank

"Now God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair."
William Shakespeare

"Alms giving during this season can be in the form of money, food, or clothing. Not everyone may be able to give these, but we can all give the alms of words, which we all need. We can give the alms of words everywhere." Catherine Doherty

"The light is shining in the darkness, but the darkness does not comprehend it...In the seasons of our Advent-waking, working, eating, sleeping, being-each breath is a breathing of Christ into the world."
 Caryll Houselander

"The value of a man should be seen in what he gives, not in what he is able to receive." Albert Einstein

"We always think of Jesus when He preaches, when He heals, when He travels, walks along the street, even during the Last Supper..But we aren't used to thinking about Jesus smiling, joyful. Jesus was full of joy, full of joy. In that intimacy with His Father: "I rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and I praised the Father." It is precisely the internal mystery of Jesus, that relationship with the Father in the Spirit. It is His internal joy, the interior joy that He gives to us." Pope Francis