Sister Tesa Fitzgerald, C.S.J., recently gained national notoriety when she was named the winner of the 2014 Opus Prize for faith-based humanitarian work. We’ve known for years about the good work of Sister Tesa and Hour Children. We’ve been fortunate enough to be able to extend Bright Christmas assistance to them over that time. Hour […]
Christmas
Take Advantage of the Time
My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, We have begun Advent which is basically a time of waiting. Time is really important to us. We live in time – the time of our birth to our death. The time of Advent in a certain sense telescopes our life from its beginning to end. It […]
Spirit of Christmas Concert, Dec. 18
Celebrate the Advent and Christmas season with Brooklyn-born singer Debbie Gibson. She will be performing at the Spirit of Christmas benefit concert for Futures in Education at the Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph, Prospect Heights, Dec. 18 at 8 p.m. Premium seats are $100. Prime seating is $75, and general audience tickets are $50. Proceeds will […]
Brooklyn Parishes Ready To Glow for Christmas
The holiday season began a little earlier than expected this year, and it wasn’t with retail sales and early store openings – those were saved for Black Friday. Instead, the holiday season began Nov. 19 at Maimonides Medical Center, Borough Park, kicking off the annual Celebration of Light. Each year, the medical center provides some […]
Advent: Embrace The Suspense
By Msgr. Joseph P. Calise The experience of waiting for something can cause a lot of different emotions. The effects of waiting for a train when you are late for work or waiting for results from some medical tests are very different from waiting for the tooth fairy or Easter bunny to come. Waiting can […]
Gratitude Is the Essence of Religion
By Father William J. Byron, S.J. As the Thanksgiving season quickly spills over into Advent and Christmas, many people find themselves remarking that this is their favorite time of the year. Thanksgiving Day is, of course, a secular feast day, and we know Christmas is not. And most of those who speak of “the holidays” […]
SFP, Friends in a Collaborative Christmas Concert
On Dec. 12 and 13 at 7:45 p.m., the music department of St. Francis Prep, Fresh Meadows, will be presenting its annual Christmas concerts. “You can’t anticipate what your experience will be unless you’re immersed in the process,” said senior violinist Joanna Kanellopoulos. Like many of her peers, Kanellopoulos did not start playing violin until […]
Elusive Peace of the Christmas Season
By Carol Powell The liturgical season of Advent is here once again. This is a time when we prepare not only to celebrate the birth of Christ but to remind ourselves of the Second Coming of Christ at the end of time. We are also asked to prepare our hearts and to purify our lives […]
Christmas Champs Crowned
The St. Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr, Ozone Park, ninth-grade boys’ CYO basketball team defeated St. Joseph’s, Astoria, 56-52, to win the championship of the CYO Christmas Tournament. This year’s team was made up of Michael Bode, Travis Zurita, Angelo Ranieri, Damon Calcada, Jose Velazquez, Ben Balcarcel, Isaac Stumme, Hector […]
Presepio: Italian Tradition Tells the Christmas Story (with slideshow)
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 […]