Category: Advent

Second Sunday of Advent Facebook Covers - Cycle C

11/30/2015

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The Second Sunday of Advent brings two new covers and two new general images for you to use to share your faith.

Readings for the Second Sunday of Advent - Cycle C.

Second Sunday of Advent Facebook Cover - A voice of one crying out in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord - Luke 3:4 - embeddedfaith.org

Second Sunday of Advent - A voice of one crying out in the desert: Prepare the way of the Lord - Luke 3:4 - embeddedfaith.org

Get your covers and images for the First Sunday of Advent here.

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Advent Facebook Covers ~ Cycle C

11/25/2015

Here are two NEW facebook covers for the first week of Advent, Cycle C. Be sure to come back each week of Advent for the latest covers!

Readings for the First Sunday of Advent Cycle C.

First week of Advent Cycle C - Facebook Cover. embeddedfaith.org

First Week of Advent - Cycle C - Facebook Cover

Advent 2014 Facebook Covers - Cycle B

11/19/2014

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Advent is the a season in our church liturgical year that we wait in joy and peacefully prepare for the celebration of the birth of Jesus. It is not quite four weeks long, but includes the 4 four Sundays prior to Christmas. It is also the start of the new liturgical year for our Church. And to celebrate this new year and time of anticipation I have created this Advent 2014 Facebook Cover series based on the readings from each of the four Sundays.

As always, I hope that you enjoy and invite you to share these images with others.

You are invited to stop back soon to find my Christmas Facebook Cover series!

First Sunday of Advent 2014 - "Hope"

First Sunday of Advent - Facebook Cover embeddedfaith.org

Second Sunday of Advent 2014 - "Faith"

Second Sunday of Advent Facebook Cover - embeddedfaith.org

Third Sunday of Advent 2014 - "Joy"

Third Sunday of Advent Gaudete Sunday Facebook Covers - embeddedfaith.org

Third Sunday of Advent Facebook Cover - embeddedfaith.org

Fourth Sunday of Advent 2014 - "Peace"

Fourth Sunday of Advent Facebook Cover - embeddedfaith.org

Fourth Sunday of Advent Facebook Cover - emeddedfaith.org

Here are some to use as General Advent

Advent Facebook Cover - embeddedfaith.org

Advent Facebook Cover, Mother Mary - embeddedfaith.org

third Sunday of Advent 2014 embeddedfaith.org

For the Companion Image Series
follow me on Instagram.

First Sunday of Advent embeddedfaith.org

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Boldly Be Christ In Christmas

12/1/2013

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Boldly be Christ in Christmas - embeddedfaith.org

I have a confession. I tweet. (Father, forgive me....)

All silliness aside, I have recently found a wonderful group on Twitter called ChurchSocMed @chsosm (Church and Social Media) which hosts the #chsocm chat on Tuesday nights. Why am I sharing this with you right now? Well, during one Tuesday night chat I was intrigued by this hashtag on a tweet-"#BeChristInChristmas" from   a gentleman who goes by the twitter handle of @fatpastor. (As if his handle isn't intriguing enough!)

Fat Pastor (aka Robb McCoy) also has a blog by the same title. As I am ever the curious one, I visited his blog to see what he had to say and to find out more about the hashtag.  I found these articles:
"The Two Christmases #BeTheChristInChristmas."
  11 Things you can do to Be The Christ in Christmas.
Read both articles, as they offer great insights. I love this quote from his first article and it fits perfectly in this Blog Link-Up theme:

"No one can take Christ out of Christmas where the people of God are being the body of Christ."

I just have one thing I would like to add to his great list. My tip # 12 for Be the Christ in Christmas - Let's share the gift of our faith with our words - Let's evangelize!

Don't run away. It's not a scary word. Honest. And it is not something just evangelical protestants do either. We all evangelize every day.    Deliberately or not, consciously or not, we are evangelizers. There is a famous quote attributed to St. Francis "Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words." However, I don't believe that this is stated for us to choose one or the other. We are called to evangelize with both our actions and our words.

Pope France recently said "Let us ask the Lord, for the grace to become baptized persons who are brave and sure that the Holy Spirit who is in us, received at baptism, always moves us to proclaim Jesus Christ with our life, our testimony and even with our words." What we do, how we live and the words we speak will be how we will keep Christ in Christmas.

So, how can we evangelize this Christmas? Well, we most likely will not be going around door to door. Our opportunities can and will arise naturally; we don't need to look far for them. Especially during this busy time of year. I am going to suggest three  to get us started.

1. TALK "CHRIST"MAS
When we are stuck waiting (long checkout lines, sitting in a doctors office, etc), let us purposefully bring Christ into the conversation. Instead of asking "What are you asking Santa for this year?" Why not ask "What ways are you going to celebrate Christmas this year?" Thus, opening up the conversation to share how your family will be praying and lighting the Advent Candles each week at your house as you await the coming of Jesus on Christmas day or share how you slowly, over the weeks of advent, bring out each of the characters from your nativity scene up until Christmas day when you bring out baby Jesus, or share how you like baking a birthday cake and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus each year.

2. INVITE OTHERS TO MASS
Many of us have family members and friends who are not active Mass or church-goers, and Advent and Christmas present excellent opportunities to reach out and invite them to Mass. We can be hesitant to talk about faith with our family and friends because we’re embarrassed and don’t want to be labeled as religious fanatics. Make it a simple invitation to attend Mass with your family this Christmas. Plant the seed. Let the Holy Spirit water it.

3. SHARE THE COMFORT & WISDOM OF SCRIPTURE
We can share His words and our gift of faith in the times when we reach out to others experiencing life's difficulties or struggles which seem even more painful this time of year. Bring your bible and share the love of Christ over a meal with a friend who is questioning her faith as she endures the heartache of divorce. Offer a phone call and share Christ's hope to the newly ( and even the not so newly) widow or widower who is struggling to celebrate the season without their spouse. Share the Bibles words of comfort and assurance with the couple who is struggling with the pain of infertility or the parent who mourns the loss of a child in a season that painfully reminds us of children.

There are many more ways and I invite you to share your ideas or stories below.

We evangelize because we are convinced that we have Good News of great joy to share. Sharing our faith openly and deliberately doesn't come without obstacles. But our concerns and challenges are nothing compared to those experienced by St. Paul and the early Christians or those of our brothers and sisters in Christ who worship secretly because they do not have the freedom to worship otherwise in their home country. Be bold. Remember you are called by your baptism to do this. The things you say and the way you say them might be the closest thing to the Gospel someone ever hears or sees.

This year to keep Christ in Christmas, Boldly Be Christ in Christmas.

Cyndi

In my next post I will share 10 Things we want others to know about our Catholic Faith.

"But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:10-11

Nothing can take Christ out of Christmas as long as I strive to BE Christ in Christmas - BOLDLY be the Christ this Christmas on embeddedfaith.org

Keep Christ in Christmas Blog Link-up - embeddedfaith.org

I am taking part in a blogging link-up. This is my first time to try this, please bear with me as I make this required commercial:

I'm participating in the KEEP CHRIST in CHRISTMAS Blog Link-Up 2013 sponsored by the Catholic Bloggers Network.. Be sure to visit as many links as possible that may be found below.

Here are the Links for others participating in the Catholic Bloggers Keep the Christ in Christmas Link-up. Take a moment to allow them to share their faith with you! (will be updated as more join!)

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Why Use A Lot Where A Little Will Do

11/25/2013

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In my last post ( I boarded the Cruise Blog Lines and headed out to sea: Someone throw me a life jacket...Please.)    I made a promise to discuss why I chose Weebly as my website builder over some of the more popular options, namely Wordpress.

I won't be providing a side by side comparison of the pros and cons for these website builders. I will leave that in the hands of the experts. If you would like to read an article that compares Weebly to Wordpress, then may I suggest you read this article from Website Builder Expert.  These folks also offer some very easy to understand comparisons of several other website builders on the market.   The main thing to take note of is that there is no one size fits all.

There is nothing technical about how I came to my decision. It was an emotional decision.  The first reason was I did not want any advertising on my site. The second reason can be summed up in this humble principal: why use a lot where a little will do.

With all the customization we have become accustomed to in our modern day living, we expect more. This is true in our blogging platforms as well, we want and expect even more. The are too many choices to make and too many options from which to choose. From themes, to plug-ins, to webhosting. It is so easy to become overwhelmed.

I wonder if sometimes we spend more time perusing all of the choices than we do actually enjoying the moments and the opportunities for sharing.

Some of us may not have abundant resources or technical knowledge. So our passion and purpose will be our greatest assets.  This should be our focus instead of the latest and greatest widgets or plug-ins.

We don't have to do more with a website builder. A little will do. Some would even say less is more. It may turn out to be the biggest advantage to choosing less is that we are going be able to enjoy more time focused on our purpose and that which inspired us to evangelize on the web in the first place.

What's wrong with a little webpage humility in this world of excess?

It was no accident that our Lord was born into this world in the most humble of circumstances: A God who was born into humanity with no possessions, born as a God with no personal pretensions, simply as Emmanuel, God who is with us, alongside us, as a God who fixes his abode among us.

I look forward to the season of Advent that is just a few days away. Advent offers  us a unique challenge to practice the idea that less is more. I pray that we do not get caught up in busyness of this season or the busyness of widgets and blogging that distract us from having an Advent season that truly prepares our hearts and minds for the celebration of Christmas, and the birth of our Savior.

May we humbly open ourselves to allow God to come to us this Advent.  We don't have to do more to have God come into our hearts.  We just have to do the letting - God will do the rest.

Cyndi

I do not receive any financial gain from Weebly for mentioning them in this article.

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Forward>>

Second Sunday of Advent Facebook Covers - Cycle C

Advent Facebook Covers ~ Cycle C

Advent 2014 Facebook Covers - Cycle B

Boldly Be Christ In Christmas

Why Use A Lot Where A Little Will Do

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