Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year A) 21st December 2025

Newsletter 4th Sunday of Advent (Year A) 21st December 2025.pdf

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Today’s Gospel records events surrounding the Incarnation: Christ becoming human flesh. Christ became human flesh in order that we who are flesh may experience the fullness of his Divinity or experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit.  Our Blessed Mother is the ideal example; the Bible says she is full of Grace or full of the Holy Spirit.  This is the state that all humans are called to. Another example is Luisa Piccarreta.  Luisa loved Jesus so much that the two of them were inseparable. On Sunday, April 23, 1865 in the small town of Corato in the Sothern Italian province of Apulia, a little girl named Luisa Piccarreta was born. Her mother had no labour pain. They had five children—all girls. At about age 10, Jesus continued to guide and instruct her, “If you do not leave the little world of thoughts and feelings for creatures, I cannot enter completely into your heart and possess it forever. Promise Me that you will be totally mine. These conversations of yours displease Me. They fill your mind with things that do not concern Me. I occupied My mind only with what concerned the glory of My Father and the salvation of souls. I opened My mouth only to say holy things. Can you not do as much?” At age 18, fearing that something terrible was about to happen, Luisa moved to the balcony.  She wrote: “I saw a huge crowd of people passing beneath my balcony. They drove my gentle Jesus – pushing and pulling Him – as He staggered under the Cross. Then He looked up at me as if to ask for my help. Who could describe the grief I felt? “How You suffer, my sweet Jesus! To give You relief, my God, let me suffer. It isn’t right that You should suffer so much for love of me a sinner – and I suffer nothing for You”. At these words, Jesus ignited such a fire of love for sweet suffering in me that it hurt me less to suffer than to be without pain.  Eventually, her sufferings confined her to bed. Her mouth and jaw closing so tightly that she could not eat. If her family forced her to swallow a few drops of liquid, she vomited them. Luisa’s parents summoned a priest.   She was given Holy Communion, and she was able to consume Him.  For the next 64 years, until her death, Luisa had Holy Communion almost every day.  Her only food was Holy Communion. For four years, Fr. Di Loiodice acted as Luisa’s confessor. In 1887, a Cholera epidemic in Southern Italy gave him the first public sign of her supernatural calling. Luisa wrote: ‘One day I prayed to the Lord, more than ever before to stop this Cholera scourge, while I prayed Jesus appeared to me and said, Have you forgotten that I want you to imitate my life? You must suffer the hardships, denials, grief and death‐pains that I suffered. You must experience them in the same way that I did…. I want you to be a victim of love for the people. If you really love Me, you will give your all for their salvation.’ Luisa’s sufferings brought an end to the epidemic and convinced her confessor of her vocation to victimhood. In October, 1888, Luisa received ‘Mystical Marriage’: Jesus gave her a invisible ring as a sign of their union. “From now on, He told her. “I put an end to you and I.  Everything will be “ours”.  Like a faithful spouse, you will join Me in guiding the destiny of the world.”  On the Feast of the Birthday of Mary, September 8, 1889, Jesus whisked Luisa out of her body and took her to Paradise to renew their Marriage.  Jesus said: “We took possession of your heart and made our permanent home there.  Also, in that ceremony she was given the invisible stigmata.  Day and night, she remained in what she called her “usual state,” a semi‐permanent state of suffering in union with Jesus. At about midnight or one o’clock in the morning, her body petrified, her breathing stopped, and her soul was separated from her body. From then until six in the morning, her body lay, leaden and immovable, while her soul ranged with Jesus across time and space. With Jesus as her guide, Luisa visited Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. She witnessed numerous scenes from the lives of Jesus and Mary and she visited people in different parts of the world, in order to pray for them.  After Mass and a few hours of prayer, Luisa usually began her day’s work, making lace, knitting and sewing altar cloths and vestments for the church. During the morning hours, Luisa also received visitors. As her reputation for sanctity increased the number of visitors grew, but most of her regular visitors were girls from the Corato area.  For several years, one of Luisa’s regular companions was a young girl by the name of Francesca Capozza who later became a Sister: a Daughter of Divine Zeal. From Luisa she learned how to sew. Luisa often asked Francesca to do the more difficult parts of the needlepoint, because the stigmata wounds in her hands made her incapable of doing them. On several occasions Francesca saw the lips of Jesus moving on the crucifix while Luisa conversed with Him.  At about 4pm Luisa would pray the Rosary. At 10:00 or 11:00 P.M., Luisa often laid aside her knitting and began to write whatever Jesus made known to her. At midnight or one o’clock in the morning, she usually lost consciousness. Her body grew rock‐hard, immovable.  Luisa, when comparing herself to Jesus, considered herself as “nothing.” “I said to my sweet Jesus: “I do not know how to do anything. Nevertheless, I want to give You, my nothingness. I unite my nothingness to the All that You are.  Thus, as I breathe, my breaths ask You for souls. With incessant cries, my heartbeats ask You for souls. The motion of my arms, the circulation of my blood, the blinking of my eyes, the movement of my lips ask You for souls. While I said this my Jesus moved in my interior and said to me: “Not even a breath or a heartbeat escaped Me that did not ask for souls. How many marvels I worked in my hidden Life!  Many times, Jesus showed Luisa the chastisements called down upon mankind through its rejection of God. On April 19, 1906, she wrote: I found myself outside of my body. I could see nothing but fire. The earth seemed to have opened up and threatened to swallow towns, mountains and people. Terrible earthquakes took place.  Jesus invited Luisa to share in the hidden pains of his Passion, Jesus said: “As I was conceived, I conceived within Me all souls, past, present and future, to be able to say to the Father, “My Father, no longer look at the creature but at Me alone. In Me, you will find everyone; and I will satisfy for all. As many pains as you want, provided I can give life to all.”  To Luisa Jesus said: “Therefore, come into my Will and take part in the deaths and pains that I suffered from the moment of my Conception.  On March 4, 1947, “Luisa died.” More than forty priests attended the funeral, in addition to the local clergy. The entire population of the town turned out to accompany the procession. In today’s Gospel we read that God became human. In the life of our Blessed Mother, Luisa Picccareta and others, we see that God’s plan is for us to share in His divinity, as much as a human can.