By Greg Erlandson
How is your supply of Christmas cheer doing these days? Mine is in rather short supply.
12/10/19
Reading Time
3
min
By Christina Capecchi
The sweetness of Rudolph’s redemption is spooned out so liberally it reveals May’s lingering boyhood wounds.
12/10/19
Reading Time
3
min
By Steve Weidenkopf
Throughout the storied past of the Catholic Church, Christians were faced with serious questions concerning doctrinal teachings and disciplinary policies. Most of these questions were answered at the local level by the competent ecclesiastical authority (usually the diocesan bishop), but, sometimes, major issues were addressed at the universal level with a meeting of all Catholic bishops united in the vicar of Christ, the Roman pontiff. Bishops meeting to discuss serious issues in the church began in the apostolic age. The apostles gathered in Jerusalem in the mid first-century to discuss the pressing question of whether Gentile converts to the faith had to follow Jewish dietary laws and the law of circumcision. The church adopted this apostolic assembly model throughout history and such assemblies, when they involved the entire world’s bishops, were called “ecumenical councils.”
12/4/19
Reading Time
3
min
By Ana Lisa Piã‘on
Christmas shopping has begun officially. Many people ask, "What do you want for Christmas?" Very often, I don't have a proper response because I don't know. Do I want some beauty product that promises everlasting good looks that will lead others to admire me and give me wealth and happiness? Do I want a drink that will instantaneously melt all the excess pounds into a puddle, leaving me with a body like top model Giselle Bundchen by Christmas? Or do I want clothing to adorn my body, hoping to have the elegance of Princess Catherine, duchess of Cambridge? Although I have tried many of these products and purchased tons of clothing, I am embarrassed to say I wound up more depressed than when I first began. For a fleeting moment, I was happy, but shortly after, I realized it was not what I wanted. Which leads me back to the original question — what do you truly want? What will satisfy this deep, unquenchable hunger? Why do I want more and more things that ultimately do not make me happy or spark joy?
12/4/19
Reading Time
3
min
Bishop Michael F. Burbidge is challenging us, his flock, to set our sights above all the shopping, food and busyness: With “Just One Yes” (JOY), he invites us in the Advent and Christmas seasons to increase our “connection to God” through “prayer, service to others, and self-sacrifice.”
12/4/19
Reading Time
3
min
By Brett Robinson
My wife and I are expecting our fifth child in February. It's been six years since we had a newborn in the house, so there are some things we need to relearn about life with a baby. Most pressing perhaps is the role that technology will play in our family life when the new baby arrives.
12/4/19
Reading Time
3
min
By Elizabeth Foss
Advent has become entirely too serious. We’ve replaced anticipation with obligation. In the name of preparing for Christmas (or celebrating it ahead of its time), we are adept at cramming absolutely every “good idea” into the four weeks before Dec. 25, and then we struggle under the weight of it all.
12/4/19
Reading Time
3
min
By Fr. Joseph Rampino
We would be mistaken simply to equate Advent with Christmas preparation. The season calls us to much more, and to recognize further-reaching spiritual realities.
11/27/19
Reading Time
3
min
By Fr. William Saunders
Thanksgiving ought to be celebrated as a religious holiday. Consider our English history. The first official Thanksgiving Day observance occurred in Virginia. Thirty-eight English settlers arrived at Berkely Plantation on the James River near present Charles City Dec. 4, 1619. The settlement's charter required that the day of arrival be commemorated as a day of thanksgiving to God.
11/27/19
Reading Time
3
min
Are you in need of a little hope?
Advent is a season to stir up God’s gift of hope within our hearts.