Thy Kingdom Come

Psalm 65:9

You visit the earth and cause it to overflow.
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A friend recently told me that in the Catholic church they practice novena. I'm not Catholic and didn't know what that was so I looked it up and found that it is nine days of prayer and devotion to obtain special graces. It has a long and diverse history that I didn't fully read about, but in the past it has been practiced at different times and for various reasons. The nine days leading up to Christmas is one of those. During these nine days, symbolic of the 9 months Christ was in Mary's womb, the people pray for Christ's coming. So much of Christmas is tradition and just what people do without thinking about it. I like hearing about how other cultures celebrate and worship - it gives fresh persepective as I look on from the outside, and allows me to see the reality underneath all the hoop-la. I like the idea of novena - though I think its more real than just a religious idea. The reality novena speaks of is God on earth. Did God really come to earth? That is the claim...and it is an extraordinary and rather ridiculous claim if you think about it. I've thought about it a lot, and I decide to pray the novena. I don't know what special graces are exactly, but God's kingdom on earth strikes me as something extremely special and more full of grace than anything else I could think to pray for. And so I pray for Christ's coming...."Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."