Little Brother Avi Bala Bitra OFM Cap.

  FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT Readings: Isaiah 2:1-5 Romans 13:11-14 Matthew 24:37-44    Today we begin the season of Advent and with this we begin the new liturgical year. On this day the church invites us to be ready and prepared to receive the Lord. Advent means waiting and we wait eagerly for someone we love, we care and we are ready to invest our time on him.  In the liturgical calendar, the season of Advent means a joyful waiting, a waiting for Jesus prayerfully, with affection and love. There is the eagerness within us to receive him and we look forward to this great event when God becomes man. However, it is a special kind of waiting for a God who has come already, who is coming regularly into our life and who will come again at the end of time.  We know that Jesus came into the world already two thousand years ago and we remember this event with devotion. We know that he will come again at the end of time as a judge and unite the whole universe to hi...

  THIRTY SECOND SUNDAY OF THE YEAR Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38   Christian belief in immortality is unique and special. For us death is a door that opens us to full of surprises and not a wall that blinds us from every possible vision. Our resurrection gives us the hope that we will be with God fully alive and active fulfilling the call that God has given us.   A resurrected person would be alive with God praising and thanking him and experiencing life totally different from the earthly life.   Today’s First Reading taken from the second book of Maccabees tells us that God’s servants remain loyal even in the face of death as they know that they will be with God. Here we have the story of the martyrdom of the mother and her seven sons. Each one of them was willing to die for the Law of Moses because they believed in afterlife and that at the last trumpet, the King of the universe would raise them up to everlasting life. They ...