Love Goes Underground
Dec 24, 2011
Dear Readers,
Thank you. For your prayers and your words of encouragement. For your always thoughtful, always civil discussion in my comboxes — holy mackerel, who knew “thoughtful,” “civil,” and “comboxes” could go together in the same sentence?
To you men and women with SSA — thank you for your courage, and your willingness to follow the light of the Church even when her light at first looks dark to our distempered eyes.1 For your hard questions and your refusal to take the easy way out. For your respectful disagreement and your enthusiastic affirmation.
To everybody else — thank you for your presence and your understanding, and your willingness to engage these questions even when they don’t touch you personally. There are more of you here than I expected, and it makes me very happy. Thank you for showing me how much we all have in common.
What a good year it’s been! Dear eighteen-year-old self, angry and lonely and frustrated and sunk into the pit of yourself, just wait, just wait till you see! You’re going to love it here. Like Jesus told you, he will not let you fall. He meant that.
Christmas comes into the year just like God comes into our lives: quietly, in the middle of the dark and cold, preparing the secret seeds of life and love even in the depths of the frozen ground. Be silent, be still, His love is always working.
I’m taking a few days off. I’ll see you in 2012. Oremus pro invicem.
Peace be with you
(and with your spirit!),
Steve Gershom
Beautiful, Steve.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas, Steve! I thank God for the inspiration you have shared with us all. May your Christmas be blessed and your new year be prosperous.
Merry Christmas. Peace and blessings to all.
May this Christmas be a time of special joy and grace for you and all your family.
Steve, you sent me looking for a translation so I thought I’d share what I found with any other Latin-impaired folk who might be lurking about
Oremus pro invicem = Let us pray for eachother.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Merry Christmas, Steve, and everyone.
May we find comfort in the words of the angel to the shepherds on that first Christmas night: “Do not be afraid. Behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the city of David a savior has been born for you who is Messiah and Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).
God bless you, sir!
Merry Christmas, Steve!
Steve,
I just found your website last week. What a Christmas Miracle! To find such an active, positive and current place for Catholics with SSA to go to is nothing short of a gift from God!
Merry Christmas!!
DaveMc: I totally agree! Merry Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Steve! Thank you for writing this wonderful blog.
Dominus tecum, fili Virginis Matris. Thank you so much for your presence here, your intelligence and humor and encouragement. You’re one of the few people who has made me cling to chastity at all, and for that, I thank the God within you.
From our Holy Father’s address at Mass last night:
“In this spirit let us celebrate the liturgy of the holy night, let us strip away our fixation on what is material, on what can be measured and grasped. Let us allow ourselves to be made simple by the God who reveals himself to the simple of heart. And let us also pray especially at this hour for all who have to celebrate Christmas in poverty, in suffering, as migrants, that a ray of God’s kindness may shine upon them, that they – and we – may be touched by the kindness that God chose to bring into the world through the birth of his Son in a stable.”
May the Lord bless us and keep us in the bosom of His holy Church, and may His mercy shine upon each one of us.
Merry Christmas!
Oh phew. I thought the first part of the post was a prelude to an announcement of a more permanent absence from the world of blogging. So glad you’ll be back.
Hi,
There are free saints’ books available for advent reading (or any time of the year)
http://www.saintsbooks.net/
http://catholic-books.blogspot.com/
Books written by St Faustina Kowalska, St Therese of Lisieux, St John of the Cross, and many others.
They are in digital format and free.
God Bless
Merry christmas and a happy new year steve
LAETA NATIVITATIS ET FELIX NOVVS ANNVS VOBIS! LVX ET AMOR CHRISTI ET ECCLESIAE VOBISCVM!
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all! The light and the love of Christ and of The Church be with you all!
It’s about 10:30pm on New Years Eve where I live…Happy New Year!! I hope that 2012 is a great year for Steve and everyone who reads this blog!!
Happy New Year, Steve!
I just found your blog through The Strangest of Wars blog, and I am very much enjoying it. I fall into the “everybody else” category, in that I do not experience SSA, but I appreciate your faith and courage to follow Christ and to put yourself out there with this blog. I wanted to thank you for providing all of us an opportunity to come together, share our experiences, and learn from one another.