advent
Day 6: “Carrying that too”
Editor’s Note: Former DCSC volunteer and House Manager, Amanda Saunders, takes part in FMS’ Advent blog series by looking introspectively into the question, “What am I carrying?” and how to bear the weight of those answers. Throughout the Bible, we are given many images of carrying. We see in the Old Testament with the carrying…
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Advent Day 1: Enkindled
Editor’s note: Associate Director Meghan Meros opens the 2019 Advent blog series, “Enkindled,” with a story from childhood and a reflection of the value of persisting in our efforts to enkindle goodness and light in the world–even in the midst of a storm. The winter and spring of 1998 was an “El Niño” time in…
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Love Blooms through the Incarnation
Editor’s Note: FMS Executive Director, Liz Hughes, reflects on the joy and love that can be found in the presence of God’s unfathomable love. Upon entering my brother’s home, it’s common for my 16-month old nephew, Benjamin, to squeal with delight and then hide behind the couch, eager to engage in our favorite game of…
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Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall Come to Thee!
Editor’s Note: FMS Programs Manager, Emily Norton reflects on the unexpected love that has bloomed from a friendship that emerged from an emergency response training. **Names have been changed to respect privacy** “See you Sunday! Safe travels. I love you!” I hung up the phone and reflected on how natural the words “I love you”…
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Love Blooms Through an Internship
Editor’s Note: FMS intern, and Don Bosco Cristo Rey student, Cayla Dolet reflects on her time here at FMS and the growth she has experienced. Just like a blossom in a field, love can bloom. Although, it might take some work, it isn’t impossible. And just like that blossom, love can’t just bloom on its…
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From a Mustard Seed to a Garden
Editor’s Note: Former DC Service Corps volunteer, Sam Hardwick, shares how God spoke to his heart and inspired growth through the invitation to live a life of faith. This is the irrational season When I was going into my senior year at Providence College, God planted a seed in my heart. This seed came in…
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Love Blooms In Vulnerability
Editor’s Note: Return Missioner, Amanda Ceraldi, shares how love has bloomed in vulnerable conversations with students at Catholic University of America. The box of tissues on my desk is almost empty. My office couch has been occupied by countless students. If the walls of my office could talk, they would tell you stories of heartbreak,…
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Love Blooms… Out in the Woods
Editor’s Note: Friend of FMS, and Assistant Campus Minister for Immersion Programs and Community Service at CUA, Harrison Hanvey reflects on how God’s love radiates beyond institutional establishments, and is present and alive in the beauty of creation. A little over a month ago, a couple friends and I decided to take a bike trip.…
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Love Around A Table
Editor’s Note: DC Service Corps member, Nayeli Garcia reflects on how the simple act of sitting down at the dinner table has shaped her family’s relationships. This Advent season is a time for us to celebrate the coming of Jesus, but it is also a time to celebrate, with family, all of the good we’ve…
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Love Blooms Through Patience
Editor’s Note: Current Missioner in Bolivia, Maggie Van Roekel recalls a moment where beauty shone through the side of relationship that requires patience. The three of us walked back to the house in silence. There had been an argument on the soccer field. Unkind words and raised voices had been thrown. Heads down, we quietly…
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Love Blooms: Growing in Love
Editor’s Note: Current Missioner, Erin McHugh shares a beautiful encounter in which God allowed her to grow in love with the kids at Valley of the Angels in Guatemala. When I first arrived at Valley almost 2 years ago, I was so overwhelmed by the 215 kids. I didn’t know how I could give the…
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Love Blooms… At the Casa
Editor’s Note: Former FMS Associate and Current House Manager, Amanda Saunders reflects on the lessons that have come from living in intentional community at Casa San Salvador. I have been a member of the FMS family for three years. First, as a DC Service Corps volunteer, and then as the Casa San Salvador House Manager.…
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Love Blooms… In the Words of a Familiar Tune
Editor’s Note: DC Service Corps member, Amy Brandt reflects on how love has bloomed for her through an Elton John song. Love blooms… In the words of a familiar tune: It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside. It is physically impossible for me to keep from singing the next line of “Your Song”: I’m…
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Mary’s Choice
Editor’s Note: DC Service Corps member, Kevin Ruano, reflects on Mary’s ability to abandon reason and trust in the love of the Creator. This is the irrational season when love blooms bright and wild. Had Mary been filled with reason there’d have been no room for the child. —Madeleine L’Engle, “After the Annunciation” Contemplating L’Engle’s…
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Love Blooms- Persevering Through Personal Growth
Editor’s Note: Missioner, Misty Menis-Kyler, who has served in Guatemala and will be returning home in January, reflects on the importance of self-compassion and persistent personal growth. Love doesn’t have to come from a significant other, a mother, a father, a sister, or brother Love comes from all around and it comes from within. Once…
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Beginner Level Transformation… In the Soup Kitchen
Editor’s Note: Current Missioner, Tim Shelgren describes the transformation and change of perspective he experienced through serving at a soup kitchen in Kingston, Jamaica. Every week, I spend a few hours serving at the Missionaries of the Poor (MOP) soup kitchen in downtown Kingston called Jesus the Redeemer. Recently, a group of volunteers from the…
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Love Blooms Through a Stranger
Editor’s Note: In preparation for her mission in Guatemala, Missioner Becky Kreidler reflects on the generosity of a stranger she encountered while serving at the Father McKenna Center. Each week during Formation, I served at the Father McKenna Center, a social service agency supporting men struggling with homelessness and families dealing with food insecurity. One…
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Love Blooms in Unexpected Places
Editor’s Note: Associate Director, Meghan Meros reflects on how love bloomed in an a very unexpected situation through the kindness of a stranger. Search my phone contacts and you will find an eclectic group of people. Occasionally, I tell myself that it’s time to purge my contacts (why do I still need the number of…
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Advent 2013: The Light of One
Today’s beginning of Advent coincides with World AIDS Day. The 2013 World AIDS Day theme is “Shared Responsibility”. As we learn the facts about HIV and put that knowledge into compassionate action, we also recommit to our shared responsibility this Advent. We return to the very source of our compassion: the Incarnation. “I want to…
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Encountering God Through Our Lady of Guadalupe
On this Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, new missioner Jeff Sved remembers encountering God during his time in Hispanic ministry with Franciscan Volunteer Ministry last year. The rain was pounding outside as my friend Carlos and I sat in the back of the van listening to Queen. We waited with a mixture of excitement,…
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Encountering God in Our Hearts
Today, Kitzi Hendricks shares the story of one of the girls she serves in Cochabamba, Bolivia at the Madre de Dios shelter for girls who have been abused or abandonded. Martha is one of the adolescent girls I have been working with at Madre de Dios since she arrived at the shelter in March. When…
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Encountering God in Heartbreak
This Advent, we reached out to our network and asked, “Where did you encounter God this year?” Today’s response comes from Megeen Testa White, a board member who was one of our very first missioners back in 1991 to 1993 when she served in Zimbabwe. Megeen is now a nurse and lives in Silver Spring,…
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Come, Journey in Love This Advent
This first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of a journey. Around the world, Catholics joyfully welcome a new Church year and start to ready ourselves for the coming of Christ’s birth. And here in Washington, D.C., Franciscan Mission Service comissions our new class of lay missioners. We mark the end of Annemarie Barrett and Jeff Sved’s three-month…
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Franciscan Fridays: God Give Us Courage This Advent
Ring in the new Church year and prepare for Christmas with Fr. Joe Rozansky’s four-part Franciscan Friday series on Advent: Photo by Per Ola Weiberg The Advent readings are beautiful invitations to walk in the ways of the Lord. The reading from Isaiah for the first Monday of Advent speaks about the instruction that the…
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The Christmas Challenge: Getting Creative and Simplifying
Our missioner Kitzi Hendricks shares how she challenged herself in her Christmas preparations and hopes you’ll do the same. As the Christmas season approaches, I find myself contemplating the best way to prepare myself for it during my first year on mission. I have found myself turned a little bit upside down without the sounds, the…
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Franciscan Friday’s on Ramadan: Preparing for the Light
To celebrate interfaith friendship and St. Francis’ history with Islam, Fr. Michael Calabria, OFM is guest blogging about Ramadan every Friday though August 17. A shop in Cairo displaying Ramadan lanterns for sale. Dates – the sugary sweet fruit of the palm tree. They are the first food traditionally eaten after a day of fasting…
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Prayers for Christmas: Joy to the World!
“Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; Let every heart prepare Him room, And Heaven and nature sing, And Heaven and nature sing, And Heaven, and Heaven, and nature sing.”Share in our joy with our “Prayers for Christmas” video. May you have a happy, healthy, holy day filled with…
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Prayers for Christmas: Why Christmas?
Original photo by Ambuj Saxena “Why Christmas? Our vision, our purpose, our goal: to know, to love, and to serve God. To know God, to know the love between the Trinity, to know the Son, and through Him the Father, and the love that is the Spirit. To know the almighty, the creator, the everlasting,…
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Prayers for Christmas: Witness of Love
“This Christmas I am grateful that the love God showed the world in sending His Incarnate Son has been shown again to me personally in the grace of His sending me to witness to that Love, Jesus Christ, in Africa.” – Sandra Bradford, missioner, Zambia Sandra serves with her husband Bryce through a partnership with the Province…
Read MorePrayers for Christmas: Food and Health
We hear the Canticle of Mary, the Magnificat, in today’s Gospel from Luke: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;my spirit rejoices in God my savior.for he has looked upon his lowly servant.From this day all generations will call me blessed:the Almighty has done great things for me,and holy is his Name.He has mercy on…
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Prayers for Christmas: Silent Night
Today’s prayer for Christmas comes from Rhegan Hyypio, FMS program director and returned missioner who served in Brazil from 2005 to 2007 and Bolivia from 2007 to 2008. “May we truly hear the cry of the poor, hungry, sick, afflicted and marginalized in our midst this Christmas. And may we respond in love, acting with…
Read MorePrayers for Christmas: Jesus
“This Christmas I am thankful for the sky, the flowers, the trees, and the people around me — and that Jesus died for us.” – 90-year-old South African woman to whom FMS missioner Tim Marcy brings communion weekly Photo by Rennet Stowe It might seem strange to talk about Jesus’ death this time of year. Suffering…
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Prayers for Christmas: Family
The Gospel for today looks at Jesus’ family tree. Forty-two generations culminate in the birth of Christ. Generations of our own families gather in celebration of this birth this time of year. “I thank God that for having had one more year of my family being together. At Christmas we reconfirm the unity of our…
Read MorePrayers for Christmas: Art and Sharing
Photo from flickr, localjapantimes Today’s prayer for Christmas comes from Andrew Kaleya, a Zambian artist and friend of missioners Sandra and Bryce Bradford. “My prayer is to support my family through art in this coming year, and also to be able to share with others the little things which we have during Christmas.” Andrew…
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Prayers for Christmas: Mothers and Fathers
From flickr user Samuraijohnny “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy.” Luke 1:43-44. The gospel for today features two mothers: Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, and…
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Prayers for Christmas: Joy
On this Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday of Advent, we rejoice that Jesus is almost here, that our wait it almost over! Today’s joyful prayer for Christmas comes from Sr. Erika, one of missioner Lynn Myrick’s students in Bolivia. Sr. Erika is a St. Joseph sister studying to become a physical therapist. We’ve included her…
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Prayers for Christmas: Youth and Inspiration
Our missioner Nora in Bolivia with children at the Franciscan burn center Remember what St. Paul said in his letter to Timothy? “Let no one look down on you because of your youth, be an example of faith, love and purity to all believers.” FMS trains, commissions and supports lay missioners as young as 22…
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Add to Our Prayer Wall
Each day of Advent, we’re sharing a prayer from one of our missioners, people they serve, volunteers, staff, board members and friends all around the world. Today’s prayer is from Tim Marcy, one of our lay missioners in South Africa who works at an HIV/AIDS clinic and is a practicing deacon. “This Christmas I am…
Read MoreFMS’ prayers for Christmas
Join us in preparing for Christmas by giving thanks for all the blessings God has bestowed on us! We’ve gathered prayers from around the world to share with you this Advent, and this video is a collection of some of our favorites: Check our blog each day until Christmas for a new prayer from someone…
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