Spiritual Quote of the Day (Pope Leo XIV, Calling for ‘Hearts Attentive and Vigilant As We Await Jesus’)

“Let us be careful not to get caught up in frenetic activity in preparing for the feast, which would lead us to experience it in a superficial way and leave room for disappointment. Instead, let us take the time to make our hearts attentive and vigilant as we await Jesus, so that His loving presence may become the treasure of our lives and hearts forever.”— Pope Leo XIV quoted by Isabella H. de Carvalho, “Pope on Advent: Prepare for Christ's Coming, Don’t Get Lost in Frenetic Activity,” Vatican News, Dec. 17, 2025

TV Quote of the Day (Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, on How ‘The Higher Life of Man is God’)

“The higher life of man is God. And if man is ever to be lifted up, God in some way must come down to man.”—Venerable Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979), Life Is Worth Living, Season 4, Episode 112, “The True Meaning of Christmas,” original air date 1956

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Enuma Okoro, on the Gospels’ Visitation Narrative)

“I hope there's a way we can each figure out how to be an Elizabeth to a Mary in our lives, and vice versa. That we can step forward with someone else into that uncertain space of a transforming life mixed with blessing and challenge, to stand alongside another person's journey, trusting that in that act we too are somehow fortified and encouraged on our own walk.”— Nigerian-American writer and speaker Enuma Okoro, on the “Visitation” narrative in the Gospels’ Advent story, in “The Art of Life: A Season for Solidarity,” The Financial Times, Dec. 11-12, 2021 

The image accompanying this post is Visitation (c. 1517), a painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael (1483-1520) that now hangs in the Museo de Prado in Madrid, Spain.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, on the Hope of Advent)

“Look up, you whose gaze is fixed on this earth, who are spellbound by the little events and changes on the face of the earth. Look up to these words, you who have turned away from heaven disappointed. Look up, you whose eyes are heavy with tears and who are heavy and who are crying over the fact that the earth has gracelessly torn us away. Look up, you who, burdened with guilt, cannot lift your eyes. Look up, your redemption is drawing near. Something different from what you see daily will happen. Just be aware, be watchful, wait just another short moment. Wait and something quite new will break over you: God will come.”— German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), God Is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas (2012)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Cindy Perazzo, on Mary, ‘First and Perfect Disciple to Jesus Christ’)

“When we look to Mary as mother and sister we can easily imagine her as the first and perfect disciple to Jesus Christ. We see the faith that led her throughout her life from that first announcement of her impending pregnancy to the foot of the cross. Our Lady shows us how to be completely open to God’s transforming power. She shows us how to listen to the Word. She shows us what it means to wait in faithfulness.” —Cindy Perazzo, coordinator of Lay Carmelites, “Hail Mary!”, Carmelite Review, Fall 2013-Winter 2014 issue

The image accompanying this post is The Annunciation (ca. 1485-92), by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli (Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi) (c.1445–1510).  The painting now hangs in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Fr. Ronald Knox, on God and ‘The Love That Waits’)

“The world… does not understand the love that waits, any more than the love that weeps. It is so impressed with the feeling that this and that needs doing here and now that it cannot wait for God’s signal; cannot realize that He has His own way and His own time for doing things; and, in consequence, a great deal of activity is wasted in overlapping, and misdirected effort, and fussiness.” —English Catholic priest, theologian, radio broadcaster, and author of detective stories Ronald Knox (1888-1957), October 1936 sermon on St. Mary Magdalene, quoted in Rev. James V. Schall, S.J., “On Sitting Down and Waiting,” in Idylls and Rambles: Lighter Christian Essays (1994)

Waiting: the appropriate activity for this Advent season of preparation…

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Michael Gerson, on the ‘Waiting People’ of Advent Narratives)

“The Advent narratives are filled with waiting people: Mary, Zechariah, Elizabeth, Simeon, Anna. They lived in patient expectation and were receptive to the Good News when it arrived. Their hope did not come as the result of a battle. It came like a seed planted in the ground. Like the sun rising in defiance of night. Like a child growing within his mother.”—Syndicated columnist (and former Presidential speechwriter) Michael Gerson, “Prominent Evangelicals Are Directing Trump’s Sinking Ship. That Feeds Doubts About Religion,” The Washington Post, Dec. 7, 2020

The image accompanying this post is Simeon's Song of Praise (1669), an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch artist Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (1606–1669).

Quote of the Day (St. John Henry Newman, on Advent)

“Christ is coming!—from thy bed,

Earth-bound soul, awake and spring,—

With the sun new-risen to shed

Health on human suffering.”—Englist theologian, poet, educator and memoirist St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890), “Advent-Lauds” (translated from a 5^th-century hymn, from his Verses on Various Occasions (1880)

Spiritual Quote of the Day (Michael Gerson, on Advent’s ‘Fullest Expression of Hope’)

“This is the fullest expression of the hope of Advent — that all wrongs will finally be righted, that all the scales will eventually balance, and that no one will be exploited or afraid. But this hope is not yet fulfilled. Poets and theologians have strained for ways to describe this sense of anticipation. It is like a seed in the cold earth. Like the first, barely detectable signs of a thaw. Like a child growing in a womb.”—Syndicated columnist and former George W. Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson, “A Season for Hope, Not Fear,” The Washington Post, Dec. 6, 2019

The image accompanying this post is The Annunciation, a painting in tempura on panel created in 1489 by the Italian Renaissance master Sandro Botticelli.

Quote of the Day (Book of Micah, Hailing Bethlehem)

“Now you are walled about with a wall;

    siege is laid against us;

with a rod they strike upon the cheek

    the ruler of Israel.

But you, O Bethlehem Eph′rathah,

    who are little to be among the clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

    one who is to be ruler in Israel,

whose origin is from of old,

    from ancient days.

Therefore he shall give them up until the time

    when she who is in travail has brought forth;

then the rest of his brethren shall return

    to the people of Israel.

And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord,

    in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God.

And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great

    to the ends of the earth.”—Micah 5: 1-4 (Revised Standard Version)

The image accompanying this post is a detail from the oil painting The Census at Bethlehem, by the Northern Renaissance artist Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569)

Quote of the Day (Gospel of Mark, on John the Baptist)

“John the Baptist was in the desert, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. All Judaea and all the people of Jerusalem made their way to him, and as they were baptized by him in the river Jordan they confessed their sins. John wore a garment of camel-skin, and he lived on locusts and wild honey. In the course of his preaching he said, ‘After me is coming someone who is more powerful than me, and I am not fit to kneel down and undo the strap of his sandals. I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’”—Mark 1: 4-8 (New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition)

The image accompanying this post is a painting created between 1550 and 1555 by the Italian Renaissance master Titian (1488-1576).

Quote of the Day (Cardinal Newman, on Earth and Soul at Advent)

“Year after year, as it passes, brings us the same warnings again and again, and none perhaps more impressive than those with which it comes to us at this season. The very frost and cold, rain and gloom, which now befall us, forebode the last dreary days of the world, and in religious hearts raise the thought of them. The year is worn out: spring, summer, autumn, each in turn, have brought their gifts and done their utmost; but they are over, and the end is come. All is past and gone, all has failed, all has sated; we are tired of the past; we would not have the seasons longer; and the austere weather which succeeds, though ungrateful to the body, is in tone with our feelings, and acceptable. Such is the frame of mind which befits the end of the year; and such the frame of mind which comes alike on good and bad at the end of life. The days have come in which they have no pleasure; yet they would hardly be young again, could they be so by wishing it. Life is well enough in its way; but it does not satisfy. Thus the soul is cast forward upon the future, and in proportion as its conscience is clear and its perception keen and true, does it rejoice solemnly that ‘the night is far spent, the day is at hand,’ that there are ‘new heavens and a new earth’ to come, though the former are failing; nay, rather that, because they are failing, it will ‘soon see the King in His beauty,’ and ‘behold the land which is very far off.’ These are feelings for holy men in winter and in age, waiting, in some dejection perhaps, but with comfort on the whole, and calmly though earnestly, for the Advent of Christ.”—English cleric John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890), “Worship, a Preparation for Christ's Coming,” The Newman Reader: Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume 5