As we prepare our hearts for the coming of Christ in the flesh at Christmas, Our Lady serves as a prime model for the proper dispositions needed to effectively receive the Word. Her receptivity is the prototype of the Church’s receptivity of the Word at the feast of Christmas. The Eucharist is the place in the Church’s life where this receptivity is continually exercised, making of believers “New Bethlehems” where Christ “born so, comes to be / New self and nobler me” (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “The Virgin Mary Compared to the Air We Breathe”).

Presented by Fr. Austin Litke, OP, instructor at The Saint Paul Seminary and the University of St. Thomas Catholic Studies department.

About Fr. Litke

Fr. Austin Dominic Litke, OP, is a native of Western Kentucky. As an undergraduate, he attended the University of St. Thomas and St. John Vianney College Seminary, graduating with a degree in Classical Languages and Catholic Studies. After a year at St. Meinrad Seminary and School of Theology in Indiana, he entered the Order of Preachers, also known as the Dominicans. He completed his theological studies and received a Licentiate in Sacred Theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and was ordained a priest in 2011. After assignments as chaplain at Sloan-Kettering Memorial Cancer Hospital and New York University, Litke was assigned to Rome, where he pursued a Doctorate in Sacred Theology and Patristic Sciences at the Pontifical Patristics Institute, the “Augustinianum,” of the Lateran University. For the last two academic years, Litke taught at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., and this academic year is an adjunct professor and spiritual director at The Saint Paul Seminary and a visiting professor of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas.