“…they will call him Immanuel”, which means “God with us”.

After finishing our workshop on prayer with Sr. Maureen, we had some time to be in our community after all of us coming back from our apostolic ministries. We are happy to be back to our Novitiate community. We celebrated all our birthdays this year together last week. We did it in a special way for Andrea, since her birthday was on November 29th and we thank God for the gift of her life and vocation among us in our community. We enjoyed our barbeque in our garden.

As the Advent season begun, we made our crib to mark this season as part of our preparation for Christmas. We made the image of a globe for our crib as we had “care for creation” as our theme to reflect this time of Advent. As we also see in many of our Scripture texts that speak directly to us about creation; the story of stewardship, vineyard cultivation, shepherding. This theme offers an opportunity to reflect and widen our hearts and our love for those who are poor – to embrace all God’s creation and live the value of environmental justice.

“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”, which means “God with us” (Matthew 1:23).

Have a blessed Advent Everyone!

Maria O. Malau, Novice NDS
International Novitiate – Jerusalem
December 3rd, 2017