2nd Week of Advent reflection

Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”  In today’s Gospel, we are reminded of the words of Isaiah concerning St. John the Baptist and his mission, and this phrase is just as relevant to us several thousand years later, as we await the coming of Jesus.  But what does it mean to “make straight his paths?”

The Lord’s path should lead right into our hearts and souls, but many times we put up obstacles or create a very crooked path into our heart, often through a preference for our own self-will.  This tendency began with Adam and Eve when they chose to disobey God, and it has been the cause of many tragedies and heartaches throughout the history of mankind.  How many times does God say to us: “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways” (Is 55:8), but instead of humbly submitting ourselves to the Will of God, we often think we know better than God and end up following our own passions and opinions?  The result is often a person who ends up living independently from God, and in some cases, may even think himself (or his will) equal to God.  In this way, we unconsciously carry on that war against God that Satan started in the garden of Eden and continues to fight to this very day. 
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Find a Parish near your Facility

Are you or a loved one staying at a hospital, rehab center, assisted living or nursing home, or other health-related facilities within the Diocese of Arlington?  Would you or the patient like to receive the sacraments?

We provide a sortable and searchable table where you can find the parish that serves that hospital or institution, so that you can contact them to reach a priest.

Hospital Ministry Booklet

From the beginning of the CDA Hospital Ministry in 1982, the Catholic Chaplain would occasionally hand out pamphlets and booklets as gifts to the patients.  When Fr. Stefan Starzynski became the Chaplain in 2015, he gathered these handouts into a folder and handed them out on a more regular basis.  These items were condensed several times until 2024, when the prayers and information were combined into one larger booklet to make it easier for the Catholic Chaplain to hand out at Fairfax Hospital.

The hope is that other priests and volunteers throughout the Diocese might find this booklet useful to hand out when they visit their parishioners who are in a hospital, assisted living/nursing home, or who are home-bound.  This booklet contains helpful prayers, as well as information on how to receive sacraments at the hospital, Catholic Advance Medical Directives information, how to go to confession, and much more.

For now, you can view this booklet and its content online, or download the PDF file to print, but we are currently working on ways to ship out the professionally-printed booklets to those who would like them.

 

Powerful Prayers & Information

We have many powerful prayers and information listed in our booklet, and have included these (and more) on our website to make it easier to access, especially if you don’t have a booklet.  This web-based list will grow as we add more prayers and information over time.

We have also translated these prayers into Spanish for the website, and we are working to translate the information into Spanish.  At this point, we have not publish any physical Spanish booklets.  However, if there is a great demand for that, we will look into that possibility.

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Oraciones poderosas e información

Tenemos muchas oraciones e información poderosas enumeradas en nuestro folleto, y las hemos incluido (y más) en nuestro sitio web para que sea más fácil acceder a ellas, especialmente si no tiene un folleto. Esta lista basada en la web crecerá a medida que agreguemos más oraciones e información con el tiempo.

También hemos traducido estas oraciones al español para el sitio web y estamos trabajando para traducir la información al español. En este momento, no hemos publicado ningún folleto físico en español. Sin embargo, si hay una gran demanda para eso, estudiaremos esa posibilidad.

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