Association Of Catholic Bloggers

Did you ever notice that the Advent season seems to come and go in the blink of an eye? All of a sudden you find yourself at Christmas Mass wondering how your time to prepare for Christ so easily slipped through your fingers. Darn! You had promised yourself that  this  Advent would be different. You wouldn’t be caught by surprise,  yet again ! You bought Advent prayer books and an Advent wreath kit. You had great intentions to make this Advent season very different from last. However, that doesn’t have to be the case. You can make the conscious choice—right here, right now—to stop in your busy tracks and embrace the coming season of Advent; and its purpose. Advent is a season of preparing. If you have ever entertained guests, or even made the slightest effort to get ready for any company, you will see how those experiences lend themselves well to your own groundwork this Advent to invite Christ to dwell within your heart—and thus truly be ready for His seco...

The folloiwng is the first of a three part series on the Kelly Bowring book The Great Battle Has Begun. When I was a teenager in the 1970s I worked for a home security company. The workers who installed the systems were always in and out of the office for a variety of reasons. One worker in particular scared the daylights out of me. He was a Christian (denomination not important) and he was always talking about Jesus coming back. Although I was a baptized Catholic, mostly I was immersed in the Jewish faith and hadn’t yet made the connection about Jesus being a Jew and knowing that him coming back was a good thing. So, this big, boisterous guy would come into the office and my stomach would rumble and my heart would jump all over inside my chest. After a minute of two of him talking I would lose my appetite for the day and sit motionless waiting for the skies to open up and my life to be over. I simply didn’t know what to make of all of his proclamations about Jesus and repent...