We do all these things every year, and some years we do them more often than others. By the time the next Advent roles around though, we often find ourselves back where we were the previous year. So why do we keep doing this? Why does it seem that Christmas never sticks? Why does it seem like the arrival of Christ and the change that Christ's Advent brings is never lasting?

Lord, my God, teach my heart where and how to seek you, where and how to find you. Lord, if you are not here where shall I look for you in your absence? Yet if you are everywhere, why do I not see you when you are present? But surely you dwell in “light inaccessible.” And where is light inaccessible? How shall I approach light inaccessible?

The most important work of the parish is prayer. Learn to pray well! To help you with that, I have put together these new prayer books. They will be available, for FREE for those who are in attendance at Mass. Extra Copies are $5 each. A copy for another person, someone not at Mass, are $5 each. I will also ship them for an additional $5.

Actually live out your faith! We all have a limited amount of time and energy each day, where do you spend yours. Pray a holy hour each day! Click here for a guide. Don’t invest your limited time and energy into frivolous junk. Go have a coffee with a friend, or a glass of wine or a beer, and share with each other what you have been experiencing in prayer, where you are struggling, where you are finding joy, where you are happy, where you are grieving, where you are excited, where you are stressed. Share your life. Go to Confession, often! Don’t miss Mass. Finally, live the liturgical life of the Church.

“We are here until something happens, then we are not here. I am here because I am waiting, waiting for something to happen. Nothing has happened, so I am still here. I am still here waiting for something to happen. I have had much time in retirement to pray and to think. I would like to share with you about purgatory. Purgatory undoes what the sinful world has afflicted each of us with, it restores our innocence. The world, by way of sin, has destroyed the innocence of each one of us. That what purgatory does, it restores my, our innocence. So I sit here and wait; perhaps my innocence is being restored, but I wait for something to happen.”

Over 40 people came on Monday Evening to pray for an out-pouring of the Holy Spirit on our Parish. It was an incredible night of adoration, meditation, communion with the Lord, communion with each other.Since that Holy Hour Monday evening, our Parish has bgun to open up to the promptings of the Spirit. At the Holy Hour we prayed together that the Holy Spirit of God would send us a new encounter with the Holy Spirit and a renewed openness and receptivity to what He wants to accomplish in our lives and in the life of the Parish, herself.

We now have new Open Church Hours, so please take advantage of these times to go sit with Jesus! When you are unable to go to the Church for Prayer, set up a place in your home for prayer, get a crucifix, an, open bible, an image of some kind of the Lord, put your phone away, and be in the Lord's presence. Light a candle, blessed candles are available periodically by the front door of the Church, or bring me one to bless.

“Wine is like life to men, if you drink it in moderation. What is life to a man who is without wine? It has been created to make men glad. Wine drunk in season and temperately is rejoicing of heart and gladness of soul. Wine drunk to excess is bitterness of soul, with provocation and stumbling. Drunkenness increases the anger of a fool to his injury, reducing his strength and adding wounds. Do not reprove your neighbor at a banquet of wine, and do not despise him in his merrymaking; speak no word of reproach to him, and do not afflict him by making demands of him.” -Sir 31:27–31.

St Michael, in one of his subsequent apparitions, said that any of the rocks hewn from this cave would be considered a 1st class relic of the Archangel. St Michael has said that these rocks should be made accessible to the priests throughout the world so that they may be used to against the attack and influence of the evil one.

Anytime a person is in danger because of ill health or injury, they ought to call on the priests to have them anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick can, and in certain cases, be repeated.

We are trained that hope means that tomorrow, there will be no more illness, tomorrow there will be more money, tomorrow a relationship will be pieced back together, tomorrow I will suffer less, have more, and will experience no discomfort. That is NOT what the Christian means by hope. For the Christian, Hope is something much more profound, something all together superior to some vague wish that tomorrow is more pleasant that today.

Brothers and sisters, I could not talk to you as spiritual people, but as fleshly people, as infants in Christ. I fed you milk, not solid food, because you were unable to take it. Indeed, you are still not able, even now, for you are still of the flesh. While there is jealousy and rivalry among you, are you not of the flesh, and walking according to the manner of man?

If I understand the times of Consolation and Desolation that I experience, I am equipped then, to know if I am truly a friend of God, and where I can become a more intimate friend.

If you have been away from the Church, come home. I wait to welcome you back into the Father’s house. I stand ready to embrace you. If you have been hurt by someone in the Church bring that hurt with you and let me help your bear it.

I entrust all of this to Mary, the Queen of Heaven and Earth.

To put simply, prepare for war! The spiritual life is a battle, and we too quickly dismiss this as being overly spiritual or we doubt that the fight is real. While we are in a state of Spiritual Consolation we are in a period of peace where we are blessed with the opportunity to bind the wounds of the previous battle, to strengthen our armor, to restock our weapons and munitions, regain our strength, rest and regain our energy.

t is incredible to see so many people gathered to support the education of our future priests. It is incredible to see how many people, including people of our parish, contribute to such a large fundraising for the education of our seminarians.

When we are in spiritual consolation and we do not prepare for the desolation, when it comes, we will soon allow ourselves to be convinced that those experiences of God’s love were somehow not authentic or that we had imagined them all along.

It is important to note that Spiritual Consolation is a very different reality from Natural Consolation. The word, consolation, on its own, refers to an action of another person to provide one with feelings of joy, happiness, to life one out of a pain or suffering, to provide a moment of levity or peace. Natural consolations can come in forms of hugs, or phone calls; can be provided to oneself through a piece of chocolate or a glass of wine. These Natural Consolations must never be confused with the greatness of a Spiritual Consolation.

The most important thing to remember is that when I am in desolation, I make no change. In fact, there is really only one thing I should consider changing while in the state of desolation, I should increase my time, frequency, and fervor of my prayer.

When we know how to evaluate the "vital signs" of our spiritual life, we then can more accurately address our spiritual health.