Tag: "Christmas"

20 Ways to a Holy Christmas Through Advent
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20 Ways to a Holy Christmas Through Advent

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My best Christmases have been those with good Advents beginning with making time with our Savior a priority. It’s not the kind of time that gets checked off a list but the kind where we are infused with love and peace — the true spirit of Advent. This season is a time to set aside […]

Advent with King David
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Advent with King David

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My wife and I sat on the couch, the room dark except for a strand of colored lights  wound around the Christmas tree and the flickering candles in the Advent wreath.  We’d just finished reading our Advent reflection and saying the Rosary.  Now we sat together and watched snow swirl outside the window. This time […]

The Empowering Depth and Dimension of Christmas
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The Empowering Depth and Dimension of Christmas

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There is more to Christmas than just Christ’s birth. It serves as the beginning of an epic, and Advent is the prologue whereby we prepare for the first spellbinding chapter. There’s a thread running through Christmas that ties into so many other Christological elements, including Christ as Divine Lover, in concert with the poetry of […]

About Those Christmas Animals
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About Those Christmas Animals

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The Classic manger scenes always include cows (or oxen), donkeys (or mules), and sheep. The Egyptian god Apis was a bull who was believed to be a king and who would become a god after his ritual slaughter. The Roman god Consus was a protector of grain, who had an altar underground, and who considered mules […]

Epiphany: The Light of the World
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Epiphany: The Light of the World

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Rome is known as the Eternal City for good reason. One of the city’s ancient marvels is the Egyptian obelisk in Saint Peter’s Square, a block of marble as tall as a tree that weighs 330 tons. Erected as a monument to Pharaoh in 1850 BC, it stood watch over the whole of Egyptian history, […]

Come Let Us Adore Him
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Come Let Us Adore Him

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Adoration: The intense and greatest admiration culminating in reverent worship of the divine. Acts of homage in words of praise, prayer or gifts that express the adoring attitude of the creature in the presence of his Creator. The expression of the soul’s mystical realization of God’s presence (Smith’s Bible Dictionary, 1901). There is just one […]

A Figure Of Deep, Genuine Mercy
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A Figure Of Deep, Genuine Mercy

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The figure of the Pieta resides on the top shelf along the southwest wall of my living room, just a little higher and to the left of our 40-inch TV screen. Next to it stands a clear glass angel. Another foot-and-a-half to the left is a tall grey cross, the base of which proclaims “All […]

From Loathing to Loving the Rosary
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From Loathing to Loving the Rosary

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One of the things I love about Advent and Christmas is the extra emphasis on the Blessed Mother. As a motherless Catholic, it’s been easy to embrace Mary as my own mother and I always love hearing the Scriptures about her this time of year. Reprinted with permission from CatholicSistas.com. For most of my years […]

The Holy Family: The Reason for Christmas
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The Holy Family: The Reason for Christmas

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Do you love Christmas? Before you answer, I don’t mean the nearly 4 weeks of frantic shopping or the crazy parties or the frenzied family gatherings or the warm, gushy feelings we get from receiving presents. I mean the real reason why we do those things in the first place. Do you love the real […]

It Is Good to Be Seen
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It Is Good to Be Seen

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It is that time of year again, the time when we gather together to remember our blessings and bestow gifts upon one another in celebration of our Savior’s birth. It’s easy to get caught up in the secular world of stress, worrying, and over-buying, but as Christians it is important that we remember the reason […]

Christmas Time Out of Time
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Christmas Time Out of Time

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My five year old daughter and I were playing a guitar duet together. On just one guitar: I fingered the chords, she strummed the strings. While she strummed, she made-up her own lyrics. This is a regular activity for us, and even without guitar accompaniment she loves to “write her own songs.” On the day […]

A Guide to Intentional Christmas Giving
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A Guide to Intentional Christmas Giving

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A few years ago, I started making an effort to do my all my Christmas shopping before the start of Advent. I wanted to be free during Advent to focus on spiritual preparation for Christmas, rather than rushing around trying to buy everyone’s gifts at the last minute. As a born procrastinator, this proved to […]

My Favorite Christmas Gift
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My Favorite Christmas Gift

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At the pinnacle of the sloping ceiling at St. Cletus Catholic Church (in St. Charles, Mo.), at the center of the church, some clear windows allow sunshine to stream downward – when the sun is shining, of course. The sun was shining brightly in our part of the world on Christmas Day. Praise God! Monsignor […]

The Birth of Christ and Time-Travel
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The Birth of Christ and Time-Travel

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On the Second Sunday of Advent I preached a sermon the subject of which was time, specifically on the minutiae that governs our temporal reality. Like sands in an hour glass, so are the days of our lives. Now I would like to revisit the subject of time from a different perspective—time travel. This is […]

From Angels We Have Heard
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From Angels We Have Heard

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“The Word became flesh” (John 1.14) is a central tenet of Christian truth. It’s what Christmas is about ? not some little fat man in a red suit. Jesus is the Word that became flesh. The Incarnation: God made man.  It is a unique and singular historical event so significant that the universe rejoiced. Saint […]

Wedding Rings and Christmas Tree Ornament
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When Hollywood Celebrated Christmas and Marriage

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I don’t see a happy ending to this story.

From Grief to Gratitude
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From Grief to Gratitude

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Christmas traditions help a family cope after mother passes away In 2005 I lost my wife Joanne after her short battle with cancer. Nothing could have prepared me and our nine children for the future that lay before us. Our first Christmas without her was heart-wrenching. I remember decorating the tree, with every ornament that […]

The Mystery of the Incarnation
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The Mystery of the Incarnation

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“Mystery,” he sneered. “That’s a good Catholic word.” My friend was a fundamentalist who had more than a bit of antipathy towards the Catholic Church, charging that it added to the simple faith of the Bible. But he didn’t read his bible very well. The word “mystery” is a Catholic word, only because it is […]

The Four Greatest Christmas Gifts Parents Can Give to Their Children Year-round
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The Four Greatest Christmas Gifts Parents Can Give to Their Children Year-round

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What are the four greatest Christmas gifts parents can give to their children year-round? Certainly we have the obvious one, love. But how do we love? How do we manifest our love, this love which should be poured out as agape love, a love of total self-giving, a sacrificial laying down one’s life and complete […]

Christmas Tree, Vatican City, 2011
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Jeremiah, Christmas Trees, and the King James Bible

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Responding to an annual fundamentalist canard.

Ebenezer Scrooge: Christmas Eve Conversion
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Ebenezer Scrooge: Christmas Eve Conversion

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“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.”

One of the Most Powerful Christmas Lessons
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One of the Most Powerful Christmas Lessons

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What we can grasp is the innocence and gentleness of the baby Jesus.

The Christmas Metamorphosis
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The Christmas Metamorphosis

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I’m like a Christmas caterpillar. During the holidays, I put on a fuzzy sweater and eat my way through the season. By the Epiphany, the sweater is a little snug. But that’s ok. I think of it as just a phase in my evolving yuletide metamorphosis, as I pass through different stages of development on […]

Consider Christ
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Consider Christ

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With today’s writing I want to speak to an audience I don’t normally speak to.  We “smart” Catholics like to look down on those who don’t do things the way we do.  We look down on those who aren’t there with us every Sunday at Mass.  This is the audience I’d like to speak to. […]