Third Sunday of Advent

My Companions, pray with me:

Lord, help us to respond to your call like St. John the Baptist did. May we take time in our desert places to come to know your loving kindness. Then accompany us as we point to Jesus in our thoughts and actions.
We ask you to bless and comfort all the people on our prayer list and all those who have requested that we pray for them.
Help us to know your love which allows us to seek your forgiveness for alienating you and others in our thoughts and words.

     Amen

Companion Events: Birthdays: Whitney Ross (12/10), Isabel Grace Parise (12/12), Lina Hettermann (12/13), Danielle Lay (12/16). Anniversary: Katie and Nick Johnson (12/11). In memoriam: Dorothy Anne Seese  (12/11/2015), Curt (Donna Farrell's son 12/16/2002).

Keeping In-touch: Despite our warm temperatures, we have begun to enter the Advent/Christmas spirit. The decorating nears completion, baking continues, and shopping takes place mostly online. We're watching Hallmark Christmas Movies and doing some church service, and have attended a Christmas concert. Most of our football teams are playing for their pride; we begun to enjoy college basketball. I made a new friend from Kenya and may be able to help him to develop online courses for his college.

The Readings: Third Sunday of Advent

Some Commentary for prayer or study: The Sunday Website

My comments and an invitation for your comments: 

When I reflect on John the Baptist, in our Gospel Reading for Sunday, I think of how he took the time he needed to know his passion as a prophet. He went to "a lonely place"/the desert. And in that place he called us to repent.

This Advent I'm taking time to think of my addictions and how they obstruct my my attention to the voice of God within me that calls for truth, beauty, compassion...wholeness. I hope we will all celebrate this Advent with a renewed consciousness of God's awesome love!