By Effie Caldarola After Christmas, a brutal cold descended on my part of the Midwest and ushered in our new year. We returned from our holiday travels to find a light dusting of snow. Most of it had been blown away by the harsh winds of the Plains, but when I awoke in the morning, […]
According to an old Vatican aphorism, “We think in centuries here,” and viewed through that long-distance lens, the most important Catholic event of 2014 was the dramatic moment when Africa’s bishops emerged as effective, powerful proponents of dynamic orthodoxy in the world Church. The scene was the Extraordinary Synod of 2014, called by Pope Francis […]
IT MIGHT SEEM that everything that could be said, has been said, about the shepherds, the wise men and the Christ Child. But that’s one of the marvels of Scripture: The unfolding history of the Church draws out of the inspired Word of God allegories and images previously unrecognized. Thus the familiar Christmas story and […]
By Effie Calderola AS SOMEONE REMINDED me during this Christmas season, Jesus came to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. Or, as a priest I knew used to say at the end of Mass many years ago, “May the unrest of Christ be with you.” I’ve been painfully aware of my status as one […]
By Regina Lordan WASHINGTON (CNS) – The following books are suitable for Christmas giving: “I Lived on Butterfly Hill” by Marjorie Agosin. Atheneum Books for Young Readers (New York, 2014). 455 pp., $16.99. Lucila has a good life: a loving family, close friends and a home in her cherished hill city of Valparaiso, Chile. But […]
By Mark Pattison WASHINGTON (CNS) — What started out as a blog at a time when few people knew about blogs and hardly anyone was familiar with Twitter is a living and growing ministry run by two women religious who are Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Sisters Julie Vieira and Maxine Kollasch […]
By Father John Catoir The lucky ones are people with a vibrant faith. They may not be perfect, but they have been able to overcome many obstacles by the grace of God and find happiness despite their weaknesses. They believe in not being overcome by evil but overcoming evil with good. Sometimes a person is […]
By Bill Dodds As I head toward my second Christmas as a widower, I now know the challenges begin with Halloween. Yes, Halloween. Filled with happy “couple” memories, it’s a tough day for a lot of widows and widowers. It is followed by Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s – one blow after another, pummeling an already […]
In his work for Christian unity, St. John Paul II often expressed the hope that Christianity in its third millennium might “breathe again” with its “two lungs:” West and East, Latin and Byzantine. It was a noble aspiration. And when he first visited Orthodoxy’s ecumenical patriarchate of Constantinople in 1979, perhaps the successor of Peter […]
By Father Eugene Hemrick The stores began selling Christmas items long before Thanksgiving, and even Black Friday was pushed up to attract bargain seekers. Each year, the messages and peddling of items seem to come earlier and earlier. Sometimes it feels as if it is all too much: too much shopping, too much noise, too […]
