Third Saturday of Advent – 20 December 2025
– You can ponder on the picture. For a method of praying with pictures click button below.
– You can pray on the words of Scripture. For methods of praying with scripture click button below.
– You can follow the suggestions in the daily ‘Reflection’.
– You can listen to the music
Today’s Scripture
Isaiah 7:10-14 ESV
In those days:
The LORD spoke to Ahaz:
‘Ask a sign of the LORD your God;
let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.’
But Ahaz said,
‘I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.’
And Isaiah said,
‘Hear then, O house of David!
Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and shall call his name Emmanuel.’
Reflection
It appears that many of us find it hard to recognise God speaking to us. Or perhaps the issue is that when we do we don’t act on it. In yesterday’s reading Zechariah had trouble believing God’s message to him through Gabriel. Today’s shows King Ahaz rejecting God’s invitation to him to ask for a sign. One of Ignatius of Loyola’s great gifts to the Church is in learning how to discern between the ‘voices’ that speak to us. Which is God’s, which is our own, which is the enemy of our soul’s? Listening to our lives, noticing and paying attention to where we experience joy, life, energy, peace, was his helpful invitation in the prayer sometimes called ‘the examen’ (See day 1). God is to be found where there is life, for God is the author of life.
Take some time today with God to look back over the day, or over this retreat so far, and notice where you have experienced a lift in your spirit, a moment of connection, life and joy. Perhaps that’s where God has been speaking to you?
Today’s Music
Celtic Worship: O Come Emmanuel
O key of David and sceptre of Israel, what you open no one else can close again; what you close, no one can open. O come and lead the captive from prison; free those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.