"What good does it do me if Christ was born in Bethlehem once if he is not born again in my heart through faith?" ~Origen

"For a stalk to grow or a flower to open there must be time that cannot be forced; nine months must go by for the birth of a human child; to write a book or compose music often years must be dedicated to patient research ...To find the mystery there must be patience, interior purification, silence, waiting...." ~Bi. Pope John Paul II

“Where there is too much, something is missing.” - Jewish saying

"Advent, like its cousin Lent, is a season for prayer and reformation of our hearts. Since it comes at winter time, fire is a fitting sign to help us celebrate Advent…If Christ is to come more fully into our lives this Christmas, if God is to become really incarnate for us, then fire will have to be present in our prayer. Our worship and devotion will have to stoke the kind of fire in our souls that can truly change our hearts. Ours is a great responsibility not to waste this Advent time." ~Edward Hays

"Advent is concerned with that very connection between memory and hope which is so necessary to man. Advent’s intention is to awaken the most profound and basic emotional memory within us, namely, the memory of the God who became a child. This is a healing memory; it brings hope. The purpose of the Church’s year is continually to rehearse her great history of memories, to awaken the heart’s memory so that it can discern the star of hope.…

It is the beautiful task of Advent to awaken in all of us memories of goodness and thus to open doors of hope." ~Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Seek That Which Is Above, 1986

In keeping with the Church's desire that Catholics use social media to advance the New Evangelization, and in celebration of the Year of Faith the hermitage has created a Facebook page. Please visit www.facebook.com/LittlePortionHermitage, "Like" what you see, then follow along as we share spiritual reflections, theological ramblings, the occasional rant, and Godly ruminations---our own and those of others---about things visible and invisible.

We must love God in the way that pleases him, and not just in a way that suits ourselves. God wishes people to empty themselves of everything and to be filled with his divine love. ~St. Alphonsus Liguori