It’s the II Sunday of Advent, 1st Class, with the color of Violet. In this episode: the meditation: “In Him the Gentiles Shall Hope”, today’s news from the Church: “Bishop Schneider Warns of the Islamization of Europe”, and today’s thought from the Archbishop.

• “In Him the Gentiles Shall Hope” – From Advent to Epiphany
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/from-advent-to-epiphany
  
  
• “Bishop Schneider Warns of the Islamization of Europe” (FSSPX.news)
  • https://fsspx.news/en/news/kazakhstan-bishop-schneider-warns-islamization-europe-55744
  
  
• The Spiritual Life – Archbishop Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop
  
  

Saint Ambrose of Milan is one of the great figures of the early Church, a man whose life changed direction so suddenly and so dramatically that even his contemporaries saw the hand of God at work. Born around 340 into a Roman Christian family, Ambrose was trained for public service and became a respected civil governor in northern Italy. He was known for his fairness, calm temperament, and gift for reconciling factions. When the bishop of Milan died in 374, the city was split between opposing theological parties. Ambrose entered the cathedral simply to keep the peace, but as he spoke, a child’s voice rang out from the crowd calling him to be bishop. The whole assembly took it as a sign, and the overwhelming acclamation left him no room to refuse. Amazingly, Ambrose was not yet baptized. Within a week he received baptism, ordination, and consecration, stepping into a life of service he had never sought.

He spent the rest of his years becoming the pastor his people needed. Ambrose devoted himself to Scripture, theology, and prayer, studying day and night to teach the faith with clarity. He defended the full divinity of Christ against Arianism, which still lingered in parts of the empire. At the same time, he brought extraordinary compassion to his work. He comforted the poor, defended the weak, and was fearless even with emperors. In a famous episode, he gently but firmly required Emperor Theodosius to do public penance after a violent massacre in Thessalonica, showing that even rulers were accountable to the Gospel. Ambrose did not humiliate the emperor; he simply insisted that repentance was the path back to communion.

His preaching was so vivid that people crowded the cathedral to hear him. Among those listeners was a restless young man named Augustine, who sat in the back, skeptical but curious. Ambrose’s warmth, intelligence, and evident love for Christ gradually dissolved

It’s the Feast of St. Nicholas, 3rd Class, with the color of White. In this episode: the meditation: “Jesus, Avenger of Evil”, today’s news from the Church: “One Pope Seals, Another Unseals”, and today’s thought from the Archbishop.

• “Jesus, Avenger of Evil” – From Advent to Epiphany
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/from-advent-to-epiphany
  
  
• “One Pope Seals, Another Unseals” (FSSPX.news)
  • https://fsspx.news/en/news/one-pope-seals-another-unseals-55699
  
  
• The Spiritual Life – Archbishop Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop
  
  

Saint Nicholas is one of the most beloved saints in the Christian world, yet the earliest layers of his life are simple and striking. He was born around 270 in Patara, a city in Asia Minor, to Christian parents who died when he was young. Nicholas inherited both their faith and their wealth, and he quickly became known for his generosity. As a young man he gave quietly to the poor and intervened wherever he saw injustice. One famous story tells of a father who had fallen into poverty and was considering desperate measures for his three daughters. Nicholas, learning of this in secret, tossed bags of gold through the family’s window by night so the girls could marry with dignity. This hidden charity became the defining pattern of his life.

Nicholas was chosen as Bishop of Myra, where he guided his people with steady kindness. He defended the innocent, protected sailors, cared for prisoners, and was bold in preaching the truth. During the persecution under Diocletian, he was imprisoned and mistreated, yet he emerged without bitterness. At the Council of Nicaea in 325, tradition says he defended the divinity of Christ with fervor, unwilling to let false teaching disturb the faith he loved. After his death around 343, devotion to him spread rapidly throughout the Eastern Christian world and then across Europe. His tomb in Myra became a place of miracles, and sailors in particular invoked him for protection at sea.

The traditions surrounding his feast are among the most joyful in Christian culture. In many parts of Europe, December 6 became a day when children found small gifts or coins in their shoes, echoing Nicholas’s secret generosity. In the Low Countries, special spiced cookies and breads were baked in his honor, shaped like the bishop who loved the poor. German and Slavic families told stories of Nicholas traveling through villages to bless children and encourage virtue. In Italy, he was honored as a protector of sailors and fishermen. The city of Bari, where many of his...

It’s an Advent Feria, Comm. St Sabbas, 3rd Class, with the color of Violet. In this episode: the meditation: “The Last Judgment”, today’s news from the Church: “Pope Declines to Pray in the Blue Mosque”, a preview of this week’s episode of Questions with Father, “Can a Baby Go to Heaven Without Baptism?”, and today’s thought from the Archbishop.

• “The Last Judgment” – rom Advent to Epiphany
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/from-advent-to-epiphany
  
  
• “Pope Declines to Pray in the Blue Mosque” (FSSPX.news)
  • https://fsspx.news/en/news/turkey-pope-declines-pray-blue-mosque-55746
  
  
• “Can a Baby Go to Heaven Without Baptism?” (SSPX Podcast)
  • View on YouTube
  • Listen & Subscribe on SSPXpodcast.com
  
  
• The Spiritual Life – Archbishop Lefebvre (Angelus Press)
  • https://angeluspress.org/products/spiritual-life-archbishop
  
  

Saint Sabbas the Sanctified is one of the great monastic figures of the early Church, a man whose life helped shape the very rhythm of prayer in the Christian East. He was born in 439 in Cappadocia to a military family, but from childhood he longed for a life of solitude. When he was about eight, he entered a nearby monastery for schooling, and the peace he found there never left him. By the time he reached adulthood, the world of armies and politics held no interest. Instead, he set out for the Holy Land, drawn by the desert fathers whose lives of silence and prayer had become a beacon across the Christian world.

After periods of formation under seasoned monks, Sabbas left to seek deeper solitude. He eventually settled in a remote ravine along the Kidron Valley, southeast of Jerusalem. Other seekers soon found him, and though he desired silence, he recognized that God was calling him to guide them. There he founded the Great Lavra, a community arranged in clusters of caves and small cells. It became one of the most influential monasteries in the East and remains active to this day, known simply as Mar Saba. At first Sabbas resisted any formal leadership, but his holiness drew people to him. When the patriarch of Jerusalem appointed him archimandrite over all the monasteries in Palestine, he accepted only out of obedience.

Sabbas was a man of remarkable discretion. He balanced solitude with community life, austerity with moderation, and contemplation with pastoral concern. He traveled repeatedly to Constantinople to...