During the New Year, many of us adopt new resolutions to improve ourselves. I suggest that we first take a step back to connect with mindsets that drive us to act. Mindsets are basic beliefs we hold about attributes such as our temperaments or capacity for change and learning.
The slogan “Nothing about us without us” was used by Solidarity in the 1980s in Poland, borrowing a royal motto from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the mid-second millennium. Then, it was expressed in Latin: Nihil de nobis sine nobis.
The Vatican is a hotbed of rumor, gossip and speculation at the best of times — and these times are not those times. The Roman atmosphere at the beginning of 2019 is typically fetid and sometimes poisonous, with a lot of misinformation and disinformation floating around. That smog of fallacy and fiction could damage February’s global gathering of bishops, called by the pope to address the abuse crisis that is impeding the Church’s evangelical mission virtually everywhere.
by Sister Lois Okpara, D.D.L.
IN OUR JOURNEY of faith, we need to get our minds rightly set by allowing God His rightful place in our lives.
To be a pilgrim is to be going somewhere. That somewhere is the Kingdom come among us at Christmas, and coming again in power and glory. The St. Patrick’s Advent Mission procession invited an aggressively secular and sometimes sordid part of London to join that journey to beatitude.
No matter where we look, peace is a rare commodity. How then can the new year be more peaceful?
by Greg Erlandson
Fifty-three journalists were killed worldwide in 2018. Some died in war, but a shocking number died exposing corruption, covering protests or just doing their job. Time magazine called them and their harassed and persecuted colleagues “Guardians” of truth, and named them collectively “Person of the Year.”
QUICK REMINDER FOR those of us who attend Mass regularly. Many people are going to join us on Dec. 24 and 25 who don’t normally come to church. They will take our parking spots, our usual pews, our hymnals and our coat hooks.
What fantastic news!
TWENTY YEARS AGO this month, I found myself seriously double-booked, so to speak.
IN THE LINER notes of an album, musicians usually thank their colleagues, staff, and family for their talent and support. But on the back cover of Grammy nominee Matt Maher’s new record “The Advent of Christmas,” the singer-songwriter expresses an unusual sentiment of gratitude: “Thanks to the red cardinal that kept showing up during the making of this record.”
