| Thursday, November 15, 2012 |  |
A 2012 Advent Message from Fr. Dan
 On December 2, we begin Advent. This is the season when we prepare for the feast of Christ's birth and ponder the meaning of his second coming. While there are no longer official days requiring fasting or abstinence during Advent, the Church asks us to prepare spiritually for Christmas through penance, fasting, prayer and charitable giving.
As a Catholic publisher we develop some of these aspects of Advent in our magazine, newsletters, website, and American Catholic Radio. We also produce books that serve as personal and parish resources for this holy season. Our mission is to spread the Gospel and to help all people we can to live a fuller spiritual and human life through all these resources.
Since 1893 we Franciscans have been organizing and building teams of people to help spread the Gospel through our magazine. You can be part of that mission by helping us provide for the needs of those who cannot afford to purchase St. Anthony Messenger magazine or who can only be reached through our e-newsletters and daily features.
For example, with the economic downturn, we are finding it more difficult to provide copies of our St. Anthony Messenger to Hospitals, prisons and rehabilitation centers. We work through chaplains and pastoral ministers to provide books, magazines, newsletters and whatever may be requested. To do that we need partners who want to share in our mission by sharing their donations and prayers for the spread of the Gospel in these many ways.
Fr. Richard Rohr, O.F.M., in Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent, says : "The celebration of Christmas is not a sentimental waiting for a baby to be born… We do the Gospel no favor when we make Jesus, the Eternal Christ, into a perpetual baby, a baby able to ask little or no adult response from us." Fr. Richard continues: "We Franciscans have always believed that the Incarnation was already the Redemption, because in Jesus' birth God was already saying that it was good to be human, and God was on our side."
As we celebrate the coming of the Lord in our midst, please join our mission by donating $50, $75, or $100. Your tax-deductible donation in any amount helps us pay the costs of all of our publishing outreaches, including this e-newsletter.
Use our secure online donation form or mail a donation payable to the Franciscans, Franciscan Media, 28 W. Liberty St., Cincinnati, OH 45202. If you prefer, you may phone in a credit-card donation for our evangelization ministries at 513-241-5615 or, in the U.S., 800-488-0488.
Peace and every blessing,
Fr. Dan Kroger, O.F.M.
Publisher, Franciscan Media
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