Seek His Face

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down,

with the mountains quaking before you,

while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for,

such as they had not heard of from of old.

No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you

doing such deeds for those who wait for him.

This year we have a very short Advent Season (the fourth Sunday happens on Christmas Eve!), so our time of preparation for the Lord’s coming is even more important. We are focusing as a Parish on allowing this Season to change us so we can change our city. That’s right. I want our process of preparation over these next few weeks to change us so that we can change Panama City, Florida to be a more holy, Christ-centered place. Is this hyperbole? An overactive imagination? No, it is simply inviting each member of our Parish Family to make a commitment that will change their lives, and through their lives the lives around them. What is this commitment? Quite simply, it is to commit for a weekly hour of Eucharistic Adoration in our chapel, so that we have every hour of the day, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week in which a member of our parish is praying in front of Jesus. One of the great saints of the 20th Century, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, once said:

“People ask me ‘What will convert America and save the world?’ My answer is prayer. What we need is for every Parish to come before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament in Holy Hours of prayer."

So throughout this Advent Season and into the Christmas Season we will be inviting you to make your commitment to an hour of prayer in our Adoration Chapel. This will be your Christmas gift to Jesus, a gift that will allow you to Seek His Face in the silence of prayer and deeper intimacy with the One who can change us and our world. We will not rest until every hour is covered, so that the darkness of this world will be met by men, women and children of this Parish who spend time with the Light of the World, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. May God bless us as we undertake this new chapter of renewal at Saint Dominic.