Editor’s note: No transcribed talks will be posted from now until the last week of January 2017 so that I may spend time with my children, who will all be home for Winter Break. May all of you have a Blessed Christmas and Joyful New Year. If you have benefited from this site, you can show your gratitude by making an additional donation to a Carmelite monastery in your neighborhood during this season of giving.
This video was published by Shalom World as part of their Fulfillment of Life Series with Father Robert Barcelos.
Pope Francis concluded his Principles for the Reform of the Curia with this Christmas Message:
A Prayer by Father Matta el Meskin, a modern day monk.
If for us the experience of (your) infancy is so difficult, it is not so for you, O Son of God. If we stumble along the way that leads to communion with you because of your smallness, you are capable of removing all the obstacles that prevent us from doing this. We know that you will not be at peace until you find us in your likeness and with this (same) smallness.
Allow us today, O Son of God, to draw near to your heart. Grant that we may not consider ourselves great in our experiences. Grant us instead to become small like you, so that we can draw near to you and receive from you abundant humility and meekness. Do not deprive us of your revelation, the epiphany of your infancy in our hearts, so that with it we can heal all our pride and all our arrogance.
We greatly need for you to reveal in us your simplicity, by drawing us, and indeed the Church and the whole world, to yourself. Our world is weary and exhausted, because everyone is vying to see who is the greatest. There is a ruthless competition between governments, churches, peoples, within families, from one parish to another:
Who of us is the greatest? The world is festering with painful wounds because of this great illness: Who is the greatest? But today we have found in you, O Son of God, our one medicine. We, and the whole world, will not find salvation or peace unless we go back to encounter you anew in the manger of Bethlehem. Amen.
Father Roberts talk brought tears to my eyes. Thank you father for you are truly blessed and anointed by the Holy Spirit, your messages flow unto your sheep, to keep them on the right path protecting their way. I’ve posted onto my Facebook, there are so many who are in need of your words to guide them, remind them, and “how to” keep close in the Lord and have the Lord dwell in them.
I pray, God Bless you and protect the Word and the Light in you always. Amen.