Worthy Words

The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. Luke 1:35-38 Mary has an honored place as being the mother of Jesus. In our Christian circles, we celebrate Mary as a virtuous young woman willfully taking on the responsibility of becoming mother of the Son of God. Still, it’s easy to overlook the difficulties Mary faced in accepting this role. She was likely in her mid-teens at the time of the angel’s announcement. An unmarried teen pregnancy in Jewish culture at the time would have been quite scandalous. She faced the prospect of being an outcast in her hometown...

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Luke 2:10-14 (KJV) Angels from the realms of glory Wing your flight over all the earth Ye, who sang creations story Now proclaim Messiah's birth Come and worship, come and worship Worship Christ the newborn King    (from Angels from the Realms of Glory) To the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks, angels appeared to announce the birth of Jesus. Today, we don’t need angels to appear in the sky in order to hear the great news of Jesus. We have the Bible, o...

Fulton J. Sheen wrote:   "An interesting phenomenon in children is that gratitude or thankfulness comes relatively late in their young lives. They almost have to be taught it; if not, they grow up thinking that the world owes them a living." A friend once told me that she didn't want to force her son to say "Thank you" unless he really felt like it saying it. "If I teach him to say 'thank you' when he doesn't feel thankful, I'm teaching him that it's OK to be a hypocrite." That's not even close to what gratitude is. Our feelings have nothing to do with why we express it. Gratitude is not an emotion, it's an action. The act of saying "thank you" is for the benefit of the other person. It's about their feelings, not yours. The same is true when it comes to say "Thank you" to God. Thankfulness is the proper response to the goodness of God. We say "thank you" because ...