by Maureen Pratt Feeling sluggish? Dazed? Foggy? As if you’d like to hibernate for the rest of the winter? The period after the holidays can leave us feeling anything but energetic. A bit of that is the natural letdown from a festive and active season of celebrations, reunions and an outpouring of good cheer. If […]
The Christmas season is a time known for its traditions, from putting up lights and stockings, to singing carols and of course displaying a Christmas tree. But there’s a tradition that lives on today that has been passed on from generation to generation: the construction of a presepio, a Nativity scene depicting the birth of […]
by Marie Elena Giossi Local devotees of St. Anthony of Padua received a special gift this Advent – the opportunity to see and venerate relics of their beloved saint. As part of a world tour marking the 750th anniversary of the discovery of St. Anthony’s remains by St. Bonaventure, the relics have visited England, Ireland, […]
My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, Christmas is not only the celebration of historical fact, but it also allows us to enter into the process of being redeemed. It is a sign of the great and ultimate redemption for which we hope. At Christmas, we celebrate, in fact, the mystery for our own […]
Catholic school students throughout the diocese made sure that others could enjoy the season before they went on Christmas break. Pictured clockwise, from top: Members from Operation Shoebox, moderated by their math teacher Kathleen Gaughan, at St. Agnes A.H.S. in College Point delivered some holiday cheer this year to the local Veterans of Foreign […]
by Father Robert Lauder AS ADVENT WINDS down, I imagine all of us, in different ways, look forward to the great feast of Christmas. There is a sense in which every time we pray, we are celebrating the feast of Christmas because all our prayers unite us with the Incarnate God. Still, I think it is […]
by Sister Karen M. Cavanagh, C.S.J. TODAY THE CHURCH gives us one Word .. one Name… in Hebrew, it is a sentence. “They shall name Him, Emmanuel…” which means, “God is with us.” We are also presented with two men at very decisive moments in their lives. For each of them, the moments seem to […]
“We run the risk of concealing Christmas behind bourgeois customs and sentimentality, behind all those traditions that make this holiday dear and precious to us,” wrote Father Alfred Delp, S.J., from his cell in a Nazi concentration camp. “Yet perhaps the deep meaning is still hiding behind all those things. What this celebration is about […]
by David H. Powell Carol and I enjoyed lessons and carol services this Advent in various diocesan settings. Lessons and carols were originally a purely Advent prayer service composed as preparation for Christmas, but over time, the format evolved into Christmas readings and carols. Usually such a service will begin with an Advent selection like […]
For the 12th year, Our Lady of the Skies Chapel, Kennedy Airport, and the Diocese of Brooklyn’s Catholic Committee on Scouting hosted a ceremony of reception for the Peace Light – that arrived on Austrian Airlines from Vienna – on Dec. 4. Scouting groups from all over the country drove to JFK to have their […]
