December 12
"Because he’s born in a cave, all who wish to see him must be bend, must stoop, the stoop is the mark of humility. The proud refuse to stoop. Therefore they miss divinity. Those, however, who are willing to risk bending their egos to go into that cave, find that they are not in a cave at all; but they are in a universe where sits a babe on his mother’s lap, the babe who made the world.”
-Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
December 11
“Open to the Spirit, [Mary] consecrated herself totally as lowly handmaid to the person and work of the Savior. She received Christ in order to share Him with all the world whose hope He is. In her, we recognize the model of the Church’s faith and our own.”
-St. Eugène de Mazenod
December 10
“Next to that which directly concerns God, nothing is more precious for truly enlightened piety than that which concerns the honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Here we encounter all that exists in a son towards his mother. And what a Mother! To us she gave her Son, the world’s life and salvation; she engendered all of us spiritually at the foot of the Cross through the pangs of the passion and death of the God-Man, the blessed fruit of her womb. She is rightly called the new Eve and the co-redemptrix of the human race.”
-St. Eugène de Mazenod
December 9
“Mary is the attentive Virgin, who receives the word of God with faith, that faith which in her case was the gateway and path to divine motherhood, for, as St. Augustine realized, “Blessed Mary by believing conceived Him [Jesus] whom believing she brought forth.”
-Pope Paul VI
December 8
“The exhortation to be watchful resounds many times in the liturgy, especially in Advent, a season of preparation not only for Christmas, but also for Christ’s definitive and glorious coming at the end of time. It therefore has a distinctly eschatological meaning and invites the believer to spend every day and every moment in the presence of the One ‘who is and who was and who is come’ (Revelation 1:4), to whom the future of the world and of man belongs. This is Christian hope!”
-Pope St. John Paul II
December 7
“In Advent we await an event which occurs in history and at the same time transcends it... The exhortation that rings out in today’s liturgy: ‘Let us go joyfully to meet the Lord’ spreads to all countries, to all continents, among every people and nation.” -Pope St. John Paul II
December 6
"... But let us not think of that advent only whereby the Son of man has ‘come to seek and to save that which was lost,’ but also of that other by which He will come again and will take us to Himself."
-Bernard of Clairvaux
December 5
“It is fitting, my brethren, that we should celebrate this season of Advent with all possible devotion, rejoicing in so great a consolation, marveling at so great a condescension, inflamed with love by so great a manifestation of charity..."
December 4
“This time of Advent is a time for hope. These great horizons of our Christian vocation, this unity of life built on the presence of God our Father, can and ought to be a daily reality. Ask our Lady, along with me, to make it come true."
-St. Josemaría Escrivá
December 31
Eve of the Feast of Mary, Mother of God
Mother benign of our redeeming Lord,
Star of the sea and portal of the skies,
Unto thy fallen people help afford –
Fallen, but striving still anew to rise.
Thou who dids’t once, while wond’ring
worlds adored,
Bear thy Creator, Virgin then as now,
O by thy holy joy at Gabriel’s word,
Pity the sinners who before thee bow.
-Roman Breviary, Antiphon of the Blessed Virgin
