Incarnate for Us
Advent, like its cousin Lent, is a season for prayer and reformation of our hearts. Since it comes at winter time, fire is a fitting sign to help us celebrate Advent…If Christ is to come more fully into our lives this Christmas, if God is to become really incarnate for us, then fire will have to be present in our prayer. Our worship and devotion will have to stoke the kind of fire in our souls that can truly change our hearts. Ours is a great responsibility not to waste this Advent time.—Fire of Advent, from Edward Hays, A Pilgrim’s Almanac

The Tools of Grace
In tomorrow's Gospel reading Jesus warns of the End of Time with a parable:Look at the fig tree and all the trees; as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my wo

Christian Hope
The Rev. Andrew Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest and novelist who sermons use stories to convey a Gospel message. Below is his story of Christian hope:When Mollie Whuppi and her friends were in eighth grade, they discovered at one of the parks in their neighborhood a game called women’s softball. It wasn’t really sixteen inch softball like we play in Chicago but smaller softball which is played in most of the rest of the country which is not as civilized as Chicago. Anyway, they liked the game and decided that there should be a women’s team at Mother Mary High School.

Beyond the Myth of Thanksgiving
The myth of Thanksgiving has everything to do with the Pilgrims celebrating a joint feast with their neighbors, the Wampanoag people to offer thanks for a successful harvest. No Thanksgiving passes by in schools without a plethora of pilgrim costumes and vaguely western-looking Native American headdresses. Yet in some dim way, we know that Thanksgiving has not been continuously observed since that fall of 1621. Thanksgiving was born out of revolution and civil war. Its history is perhaps more noble for its bloodstained roots than for its Pilgrim i

Saying Grace
The folks at Beliefnet are getting us ready for Thanksgiving with their page Thanksgiving Prayer: When Words Fail, Borrow a Line which includes:A Moravian BlessingCome, Lord Jesus, our guest to beA