A reflection on the Feast of the Epiphany — (Click here for audio) Epiphany is a word meaning ‘manifestation’. It is an event as important as Christmas itself. Jesus incarnate at Christmas and Jesus made manifest to the world at Epiphany are two sides of the same coin. We get much of the...
During today’s General Audience address, Pope Francis spoke about St. Joseph’s role as the legally-recognized father of Jesus. He speaks about how the Gospel writers handled his status—Matthew and Luke refer to him as the “foster father” of Jesus, Luke calls him his “supposed” father. Balancing the theological truth (Jesus is the Son...
Of all the decorations that we put out for Christmas, my favorite are my Nativity scenes. Over the years, I have collected many different portrayals of Christ’s birth – from paper cut-outs to nesting dolls – and each offers a different insight into Jesus’s arrival. While most of our scenes are completed on...
At 3 a.m. yesterday morning, the predicted snow arrived, dropping a beautifully unbroken blanket of fresh white over my yard. This was the first “real” snow in almost two years, last year’s winter feeling almost like what my parents in Southern California experience during these months. As a born-and-raised Midwesterner, freshly fallen snow...
For as long as we Christians have been doing theology, that is, seeking to understand our faith, we have been asking questions about salvation. How are we saved? From what do we need to be saved? Who will be saved? A question of particular controversy in church history has been whether the whole...
On New Year’s Eve, some of the contributors and I put our heads together to try to determine the best pieces we published in 2021. Going all the way back to January, it was astounding to see just how much good, hard, quality work our contributors did, and on such a wide range...
A reflection for the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord, January 2, 2022 There is an ancient legend about the visit of the three wise men in the cave. In this story, the three wise men, Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior, were of three different ages. Caspar was a young man, Balthasar a...
Today, January 1, 2022, is the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, as well as the 55th World Day of Peace. During his homily at Mass today in St. Peter’s Basilica Pope Francis returns to the theme of the “littleness” and humility of the newborn Jesus when he describes the faith and...
“Today is also a day to be amazed by the Mother of God. God appears as a little child, held in the arms of a woman who feeds her Creator. The statue before our eyes depicts the Mother and Child so close as to appear as one. That is the mystery we celebrate...
Imagine a robot that is programmed to steal. It has no consciousness, no moral sense, no conscience, no freedom, no will, it just does what it is programmed to do – steal people’s belongings. Even though we can describe this robot’s actions as being ‘objectively disordered’, we know that there is absolutely no...
Among some Catholics, there is outright opposition to the upcoming Synod on Synodality. On EWTN, for instance, Robert Royal described the synod by saying “I think that basically, it’s going to come down to a committee appointed by the pope who are going to write a document or make recommendations that we can...
Imagine three expressions written above the doorway… The expressions are: “may I?”, “thank you”, and “pardon me”. Indeed, these expressions open up the way to living well in your family, to living in peace. They are simple expressions, but not so simple to put into practice! They hold much power: the power to...
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