When you’re busy with everyday life, the idea of your home catching on fire might seem like a distant threat. But a blaze can erupt unexpectedly, such as from a cooking mishap, a dropped cigarette, or faulty heating, lighting, or electrical appliances. The flames and smoke could spread through your home within 1 or 2 minutes, leaving you little time to escape.
A fire evacuation plan can help everyone in your home escape safely.
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Jn 1:1-18
“The Word became flesh”
Jesus is the same Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow.
by Fr. David COMPTE i Verdaguer(Manlleu, Barcelona, Spain)
Today is the last day of the year. Often, mixed feelings —even contradictory ones— can be found in our hearts at this time. It is as though a sample of the different moments we have lived and those we would like to have lived make themselves present in our memories. Today’s Gospel can help us pour them out, in order to start the New Year with strength.
“The Word was with God (…). All things came to be through him” (Jn 1:1.3). When taking inventory of the year, it is necessary to think that every day we have lived was a gift. Because of that, and whatever the profit might be, it is necessary to thank God for every minute of the year.
The gift of life is not whole, though. We are needy. Because of that, today’s Gospel gives us the key words: “to welcome, to accept”. “And the Word became flesh” (Jn 1:14). Accept God Himself! God, turning into man, puts Himself within our reach. “To welcome,” means to open our doors, to allow Him to enter our lives, to be in our projects, in those acts, which fill our days. To what degree are we welcoming God, letting Him into our lives?
“The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (Jn 1:9). Accepting Jesus means to allow Him to question us. Letting His criteria influence our more intimate thoughts as well as our social and work performance. Let’s reconcile our actions to His!
“Through him was life, and this life was the light of the human race” (Jn 1:4). Faith is more, however, than a few criteria. It is our life embedded into Life. It is not only effort —which indeed it is, but above all, it is gift and grace— life received at the heart of the Church, especially through the sacraments. What is the place of the sacraments in my Christian life?
“But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in his name” (Jn 1:12). What a passionate project for the year that we are about to start!
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Mt 2,13-15.19-23
“Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel”
by + Fr. Joan Ant. MATEO i García (Tremp, Lleida, Spain)
Today, we contemplate the mystery of the Holy Family. The Son of God begins His path through men in the midst of a plain family. It is the Father’s design. The family will always be the irreplaceable human habitat. Jesus has a legal father that “carries” Him and a Mother that is always by His side. God always used St. Joseph, a just man, faithful husband and responsible father, to protect the Family of Nazareth: “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you” (Mt 2:13).
Today, more than ever before, the Church is expected to proclaim the good news of the Gospel of the Family and of life. Today, more than ever before, a deep inhuman culture trumpets, while trying to inflict it upon us, their anti-gospel of confusion and death. In the Apostolic Exhortation “Ecclesia in Europa”, Saint John Paul II reminded us: “The Church… must faithfully proclaim anew the truth about marriage and the family. She sees this as a burning need, for she knows that this task is integral to the mission of evangelization entrusted to her by her Bridegroom and Lord, and imposes itself today with unusual force. Many cultural, social and political factors are in fact conspiring to create an increasingly evident crisis of the family. In varying ways they jeopardize the truth and dignity of the human person, and call into question, often misrepresenting it, the notion of the family itself. The value of marital indissolubility is increasingly denied; demands are made for the legal recognition of de facto relationships as if they were comparable to legitimate marriages…!”
“Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” (Mt 2:13). Once again, Herod is striking, but we are not to be afraid, for God’s help is not lacking in our life. Let us go to Nazareth. Let us rediscover the truth about the family and about life. Let us live joyfully and let us proclaim it to our brothers thirsty for light and hope. Saint John Paul II calls us to it: “It is necessary to reaffirm that marriage and family are institutions and realities grounded in the will of God. Furthermore, it is necessary to serve the Gospel of life.”
And, again, “the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel’” (Mt 2:19-20). The return from Egypt is imminent!
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“Buy from the Poor instead!”
Buy from the local poor.
Sell to the global rich.
When the poor become middle income,
The middle income become rich,
The rich become wealthy.
All get richer together.
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Lk 2:22-35
“Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation”
by Fr. Daniel MEYNEN(Saint Aubain, Namur, Belgium)
Today, December 29th, we celebrate the festivity of the saint King David. But, it is actually the David’s entire family the Church wants to honor today, and most of all, it is the most illustrious of them all: Jesus, the Son of God, and Son of David! Today, in this eternal “today” of the Son of God, the Old Alliance of King David’s time is executed and fully consummated. For, as today’s Gospel narrates, the Child Jesus is presented to the Temple by His parents according to the custom of the old Law: “When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, the parents of Jesus took Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord.” (Lk 2:22-23).
Today, the old prophecy is eclipsed leaving the way for the new one: He, who King David had announced when intoning his Messianic Psalms, has at long last entered into the Temple of God! Today is the great day when he, who St. Luke names Simeon will soon abandon this world of darkness to enter the vision of eternal Light: “Lord, now let your servant go in peace; your word has been fulfilled: my own eyes have seen the salvation which you prepared in the sight of every people, a light to reveal you to the nations and the glory of your people Israel” (Lk 2:29-32).
Also, we, who are God’s Shrine, in which His Spirit dwells (cf. 1Cor 3:16), must be alert to receive Jesus in our interior. If today we have the joy of receiving the Holy Communion, let us ask Mary, God’s Mother, to advocate for us before her Son: let the old self be taken off and the new self be put on (cf. Col 3:10) so that we can renew our whole being and become the new prophets, who will announce to the whole world the presence of God, thrice saint, Father, God and Holy Spirit!
Let us be, along with Simeon, prophets because of the death of the “old self”! As Saint John Paul II said “The fullness of the Spirit of God is accompanied (…) first of all through that interior availability which comes from faith. The aged Simeon, the ‘righteous and devout man’ upon whom ‘rested the Holy Spirit’, sensed this at the moment of Jesus’ presentation in the Temple.”
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1 – Jennifer Senior: For Parents, Happiness Is A Very High Bar
2 – Rita Pierson: Every Kid Needs a Champion
3 – Roberto D’Angelo & Francesca Fedeli: In Our Baby’s Illness, A Life Lesson
4 – Sarah Kay: If I Should Have A Daughter…
5 – Adira Svitak – What Adults Can Learn From Kids
6 – Jamie Oliver: Teach Every Child About Food
7 – Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman: Exploding 4 Taboos of Parenting
8 – Reshma Saujani: Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection
9 – Gever Tulley: 5 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do
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The wall of bubbles traps plastic in the river while still letting fish pass through safely
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Mt 2:13-18
”Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt“
He will bless us with discernment to see through people, their motives, their good or bad intentions. We will clearly see their hearts and mind. He will remind us if we are in the area or in the company of people that would lift or bring us down. He will call us to what is good and bring us out from what is bad. The Lord God would tear the veil of evil facade, lies, and exploitation for us to clearly see the truth behind all things that will happen in our life. God will be our guide, refuge, and protection. Walk in His ways and never be lost in our ways, used and abused by people, and fooled by evil everywhere. We will have the wisdom to see all with the Eyes of our Lord.
by Fr. Joan Pere PULIDO i Gutiérrez(Sant Feliu de Llobregat, Spain)
Today, we celebrate the feast of the Holy Innocents, martyrs. Embedded within the Christmas celebrations, we cannot ignore the message the liturgy wants to convey to us clarifying two main points regarding the good news of the birth of Jesus. In the first place, St. Joseph’s predisposition in God’s design for our salvation, by accepting God’s will. And, secondly, the evil, the injustice we often find in our life, determined in this case by the martyrdom of those innocent infants. All this requires a personal and social attitude and response.
St. Joseph offers us a very clear and responsive testimony to God’s call. We can, thus, identify ourselves with him when we are to take decisions, from our own faith, in difficult moments of our life: “Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt” (Mt 2:14).
Our faith in God entails our own life. It wakes us up, that is, makes us fully alert to those things happening around us, because —quite often— it is where God speaks to us. He makes us take the child and His mother, i.e., God becomes closer, our travel companion, and He strengthens our faith, hope and charity. And He makes us leave at night for Egypt, i.e. He invites us to not be afraid of our own life, which, more often than not, is full of shadows too difficult to illuminate.
Today, those infant martyrs also have specific names of other infants, youngsters, old people, immigrants, ailing persons… requesting the response of our charity. Saint John Paul II told us: “In our own time, there are so many needs which demand a compassionate response from Christians. Now is the time for a new “creativity” in charity, not only by ensuring that help is effective but also by “getting close” to those who suffer.”
Let us hope that the clear and strong new light from God Infant fills up our lives and reaffirms our faith, our hope and our charity.
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Few conflicts have been so shaped by the chief actors’ sense of their own national story as the Ukrainian war that began in February. It is the competing grand narratives of the past, not just in Russia and Ukraine, but in Germany, France, Poland, the Baltics, the UK, the US, and even the global south, that make this war so hard to resolve.
Indeed, sometimes this war feels less like the end of history and more like the revenge of history.
Georgiy Kasianov, the Ukrainian historian, puts history in the cockpit of a conflict that may create a new world order. “Russian forces have been smashing their way through Ukraine spurred in large part by historical fiction,” he wrote in Foreign Affairs. “But history also propels the fierce Ukrainian resistance. Ukrainians, too, harbour a particular understanding of the past that motivates them to fight. In many ways, this war is the collision of two incompatible historical narratives.”
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by Chris F., Writer at Medium The Company
Does being nasty to a narcissist fuel their supply?
Depends on how you define “nasty.”
If you are calling them names, or other abuser behaviors, they love that shit. The more you do it, the more they can play victim. They absolutely love they can run and tell everyone how abusive you are and they “stumbled” upon another bad apple.
They can’t find any “good” people. Don’t you know that????
BUT If you hit them with some “truth serum.” You know, how big an asshole they are while you back it up with their behaviors and don’t back down, well, they run for the hills!
No narcissist gets fuel from the truth. They hate that thing. But just because they hate it doesn’t mean they won’t use it against you when you’re not looking. They have a subtle way of twisting the truth in their favor.
Better yet, don’t waste your energy on being nasty. Let the miserable person live their miserable life. You have a chance at a healthy, loving relationship, but not with them.
You have your work cut but it’s probable.
Probability is in our favor, possibility is in theirs. Anything is possible, but not probable with a Narcissist.
When a narcissist can’t beat you at their game, they will want you back. They will lose empaths fast more than they can gain it. At least, by now you learned your lesson and will no longer fall into the trap once again. Most of them never change. They will change you at all cost!
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