{"id":12828,"date":"2011-12-24T09:26:55","date_gmt":"2011-12-24T15:26:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=12828"},"modified":"2013-05-13T16:45:23","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T22:45:23","slug":"a-homily-for-december-24th-morning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/24\/a-homily-for-december-24th-morning\/","title":{"rendered":"A homily for December 24th morning"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>How will you prepare the way of the Lord?<br \/>\nA Christmas Eve meditation on Luke 1:67-79<\/p>\n<p>In his prophecy Zechariah speaks of the witness that his son John will make in anticipation of the Messiah.\u00a0 He will go before the Lord to prepare his way.\u00a0 He will give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins.<\/p>\n<p>Today, what testimony will you and I make with our lives?\u00a0 To what values and beliefs will we be witness?\u00a0 The next few hours will be very busy for most of us, and there\u2019s no better moment than now to summon up the example of John the Baptist.<\/p>\n<p>If today we harden our hearts, then we certainly do witness to a set of core values.\u00a0 If we make today a display of short tempers, a day of huffs and puffs of self-importance, a day of non-negotiable grandstanding over all sorts of trivial things, then our celebration of Christmas will be a hollow postlude.<\/p>\n<p>If today you and I go before the Lord to prepare his way, if our lives offer even the faintest glimpse into the salvation which Jesus Christ brings, then John the Baptist will have accomplished a great deal in us.<\/p>\n<p><em>Fr. Eric Hollas, OSB, is a monk of Saint John&#8217;s Abbey. He works in Institutional Advancement for Saint John&#8217;s University. He blogs at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.monkschronicle.wordpress.com\">www.monkschronicle.wordpress.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If today you and I go before the Lord to prepare his way, if our lives offer even the faintest glimpse into the salvation which Jesus Christ brings, then John the Baptist will have accomplished a great deal in us. &#8211; Fr. Eric Hollas, OSB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[1321],"tags":[1747,1748,587],"class_list":["post-12828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homilies","tag-december-24","tag-fr-eric-hollas-osb","tag-homily"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A homily for December 24th morning - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/24\/a-homily-for-december-24th-morning\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A homily for December 24th morning - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"If today you and I go before the Lord to prepare his way, if our lives offer even the faintest glimpse into the salvation which Jesus Christ brings, then John the Baptist will have accomplished a great deal in us. - Fr. 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