Advent & Christmas News
Guest Reflection: Come, Let Us Adore Him
By • Catholic Online • 12/10/2011
Prostrating ourselves with the shepherds and Magi in humility and love let us exclaim: "O! Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, I put all my Trust in You!" BALTIMORE, Md. (Catholic Online) - Who has not dreamt of adoring the Christ Child in Bethlehem? Worshiping alongside the shepherds and angels on ...
Advent Reflection: Learning Happiness and Freedom from John the Baptizer
By • Catholic Online • 12/9/2011
John the Baptizer understood that life wasn't all about him. He emptied himself willingly and was thereby able to reveal Jesus to others. His humility opened a space within him for true joy to take root and he was set free! John is a sign of contradiction for an age drunk on self worship and lost ...
Advent - The Season of the Already - Not Yet
By • Catholic Online • 12/9/2011
The older I get and the crazier the world seems to become, the more I think about His coming, about our hope in Him, and the final resurrection of the body. What you see now is not all there is in the Christian life. Advent is a time to review the lasting things in our lives. ...
An Advent Reflection On Confidence and Hope
By • Catholic Online • 12/8/2011
"The hope expressed is that each one may be made holy by God and preserved irreproachable in his entire person -- "spirit, soul and body" -- for the final coming of the Lord Jesus; the guarantee that this can happen is offered by the faithfulness of God himself, who will not fail to bring to ...
Christmas: Battleground in the Culture War
By • The Interim • 12/7/2011
On Oct. 4, the US Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on the ban on "celebratory religious music" upheld by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the South Orange-Maplewood district in New Jersey. Parents and opponents organized an "illegal" night of Christmas and Hanukkah festivities. ...
Emmanuel: God is With Us!
By • Catholic Online • 12/7/2011
The headlines are shouting doom and despair at me, but today I am not listening. CHESAPEAKE, Va. (Catholic Online) - Advent got off to a great start for me, but it quickly deteriorated into a crazy busy, trying week that was full of bad moods and frustration. I felt my Christmas spirit go right ...
Yes, Virginia, Santa Claus is Real. He was a Saint and You can be One as Well
By • Catholic Online • 12/6/2011
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He is not just an idea. He was, and is, a saint. A saint who reminds us that we are loved without limits. A saint who challenges us to remove the limits on how we love others. A saint who calls us to holiness as we prepare to ...
Advent Reflection: Prepare to Enter Into the Paschal Mystery
By • Catholic Online • 12/6/2011
There is an ancient Roman proverb, audaces juvat fortuna: fortune favors the bold. The Christian life, one in union with the Paschal Mystery of Christ, requires a certain amount of courage. Yet we draw our strength from the Risen One who died for us and who never fails us. Therefore we have every ...
A Few of My Favorite Things: Traditions That Bring the Season Alive
By • Catholic Online • 12/6/2011
Far beyond the decorations I've been pulling out of boxes all week, my most favorite Christmas things are the traditions we unpack and dust off during this joyful season. Simple and profound, done with paper, yarn, glue and lots of prayer, these little efforts reap wonderful spiritual rewards ...
Prepare the Way: Congregation for the Clergy on the Second Sunday of Advent
By • Catholic Online • 12/5/2011
The entire liturgy of the Second Sunday of Advent revolves around this phrase from the Prophet Isaiah. The Lord calls each of us to a true opening of heart so that we can welcome his coming. While the heart often finds itself on crooked roads, it is restored by two fundamental factors: ...
