This is the movement of the Holy Family.

Welcome to our Rosary meditation.

I want to invite everyone to come out

for our living nativity next Thursday, December 9th, and then the 10th, 11th and 12th.

Pick your night, come any night at 5.30 or 6 630 or 730 and we will pray the joyful mysteries of the

Rosary at each time. Now this is a living nativity, real people and real animals. So bring your kids and your

grandkids and your friends and come and prepare for a great Christmas with this Advent meditation.

So let's begin in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Let's call to mind all those we've promised to pray for.

Today is the feast of one of my favorite Marion Saints, St. John Damasine. He promoted

consecration to marry more than 1400 years ago. He was born of a Catholic family in Damascus, Syria and in the year 675.

Excuse me, he was born in the year 675 and he spent the entirety of his life under Muslim civil rule.

Now early in his professional career,

he was the chief revenue officer and counselor

of the Muslim caliph in Damascus in Syria. In the year 726, the Byzantine Emperor Leo the

third in Constantinople issued a law that all sacred images and icons of Jesus and Mary in the Saints must be destroyed.

John worked to prevent this unjust law from being enacted by widely distributing articles and pamphlets to explain that sacred images and icons are good and should be venerated and protected

because they remind us of the presence of God and the help of Mary and the Saints.

Crucifixes, pictures, statues, icons are vital reminders

that we have not been left alone in this world.

God is with us and he continues to care for us by his

...