Blog
5 Takeways From the Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent…
This Sunday is the Fourth Sunday of Advent Year C and each year when we face the last stretch before Christmas, the Church’s focus shifts to Our Lady. For children, the week before Christmas is a time of unbearable anticipation. For adults it’s a time of intense preparation. Holiday travel makes life harder on both of them. For Mary, it was all of that, only worse. No one ever anticipated Christmas more, had more to prepare, or more stressful travel to endure than the woman who did it all for the Son of God for the first time. First: The Church’s readings are plainly suggesting that we should approach this difficult time like Our Lady did. The Gospel tells the story of the Visitation, and we find Mary not just away from home serving her extended family, but bringing peace and joy to Elizab...
Hallow App’s Alex Jones Calls Liam Neeson Advent Partnership a ‘Mistake’…
The prayer app Hallow’s decision last Advent to partner with Irish actor Liam Neeson, an outspoken pro-abortion activist, drew condemnation from several prominent Catholics. The decision is one that Hallow CEO Alex Jones now says he would like to have back. “There’s a bunch of stuff we’ve worked through and learned over the last couple of years about all the ways that we have to be careful in terms of how we work,” Jones told the Register regarding the Neeson controversy. “There’s the sin of scandal. There’s material cooperation with evil. There’s a bunch of stuff that we learned and are growing in understanding.” Jones’ comments signify a reversal from statements he made in the immediate wake of the controversy. In a statement to Catholic News Agency in November 2023, Jo...
Crazy Love: Siobhan Nash-Marshall, In Memoriam…
A professional philosopher my friend Siobhan Nash-Marshall certainly was. But her own love of wisdom included the desire to change the world as well as interpret it. She constantly attempted to do so according to the wisdom that is foolishness to men. Perhaps it was because she was the child of diplomats and had learned their ways from growing up, but the late philosopher, writer, and humanitarian Siobhan Nash-Marshall always had an air of mystery, indeed romance, surrounding her. Communications with her always seemed conspiratorial, in large part because they were. Usually either brief, cryptic messages or phone calls in which she was announcing or planning something, she wanted one’s cooperation, assistance, or silent support and prayers. If she was in the same building, it was even bett...
Under Pope Francis, a Red Hat Is No Guarantee of a Job…
Let us be clear: In the Catholic Church, cardinals are supposed to have a job. Typically, the Pope either assigns them a diocese or appoints them to a post in the Roman Curia. Under Pope Francis, however, having a red hat is no guarantee of being given a position, at least not right away. Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, for example, received his red hat more than a year ago. Since concluding his mandate as rector major of the Salesians in April, he has been without an assignment. He’s not the only one. Since 2017, when his mandate as prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith ended, Cardinal Gerhard Müller has no longer had an office in the Curia or a diocese. And since 2020, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, who left the office of archbishop of Lyon, France, and was nevertheless ac...
President Biden Commutes Sentences of 37 of 40 Federal Prisoners on Death Row…
US President Joe Biden commutes the sentences of 37 prisoners on federal death row to life imprisonment without parole, expressing his conviction that “we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level.” Pope Francis, who had a telephone conversation with the US leader in recent days, had launched an appeal to pray for the prisoners on America’s death row, an appeal supported by the US bishops and humanitarian associations. By Christopher Wells In an act of clemency prior to the end of his term in office, US President Joe Biden has commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 prisoners on federal death row to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. “Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the fa...
Cleveland Bishop’s Pastoral Letter Puts Prayer at the Forefront of Catholic Life…
Bishop Edward Malesic of the 600,000-soul-strong Cleveland Diocese is drawing on prayer and reflection as key elements in the spiritual renewal of his Catholic flock. In a new pastoral letter, “A Flourishing Apostolic Church,” released Dec. 15, Bishop Malesic said his intent is “that we might recommit ourselves to a daily entry into the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ so that the Church of Cleveland may truly flourish.” Bishop Malesic is asking all Catholics of the Cleveland Diocese, whether practicing or lapsed, to set aside 15 minutes each day for simple reflection. While daily prayer is quite basic to all baptized Catholics, it can be easily overlooked in a society prioritizing “getting on with things” over quiet moments of introspection. “For many of us involved in parish life, i...
How Could the Holy Family Present Jesus in the Temple When They Were Supposed to Have Fled to Egypt?
By Clement Harrold December 20, 2024 Many of us grew up hearing the beautiful accounts of Our Lord’s birth as described in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. But taking a closer look at these episodes can sometimes become a source of confusion to the more diligent reader. One particularly pertinent problem is figuring out how to reconcile Matthew’s assertion that the Holy Family fled to Egypt right after the visit of the three wise men (see Mt 2:13-15) with Luke’s claim that the Holy Family had ample time to travel into Jerusalem and present Jesus in the Temple a solid forty days after Jesus’s birth (see Lk 2:22-38). This raises an important question: following the birth of Jesus, were the Holy Family in immediate danger or not? If they weren’t, then how do we understand Matthew’s account of...
Pope’s Sunday Angelus: ‘Support and Defend the Sacred Value of the Life of the Little Ones in the Womb’…
Angelus Angelus Dómini nuntiávit Mariæ.Et concépit de Spíritu Sancto.Ave Maria… Ecce ancílla Dómini.Fiat mihi secúndum verbum tuum.Ave Maria… Et Verbum caro factum est.Et habitávit in nobis.Ave Maria… Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei génetrix.Ut digni efficiámur promissiónibus Christi. Orémus.Grátiam tuam, quǽsumus, Dómine,méntibus nostris infunde;ut qui, Ángelo nuntiánte, Christi Fílii tui incarnatiónem cognóvimus, per passiónem eius et crucem, ad resurrectiónis glóriam perducámur. Per eúndem Christum Dóminum nostrum. Amen. Gloria Patri… (ter)Requiem aeternam… Benedictio Apostolica seu Papalis Dominus vobiscum.Et cum spiritu tuo.Sit nomen Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus,Pa ter, et Fi lius, et Spiritus Sanctus. Amen. The Angelus Prayer The Angel of the Lord d...
What Should I Meditate on for the Finding in the Temple?
By Clement Harrold December 6, 2024 The story of the Finding of the Boy Jesus in the Temple brings a range of emotions to the surface. For many Catholics, the whole episode can feel baffling, if not downright traumatic. More than any of the other joyful mysteries, this one seems to encapsulate the title of William Shakespeare’s comedy, All’s Well That Ends Well! St. John Paul rightly noted that the mystery is a story of joy mixed with drama. In some deep sense, therefore, the Finding in the Temple speaks to exactly the kind of joy which ought to mark the Christian life: a joy which acknowledges the many hardships which lie between us and heaven, without trying to ignore or downplay them. It is the joy, too, of realizing at the end of our trials and troubles that God knew what He was doing ...
Why scientist Blessed Nicolas Steno — the father of modern geology, paleontology and crystallography — became Catholic…
Share via: In this season of Advent, as we prepare to celebrate the Incarnation, we are called to quiet down and prepare our hearts to receive Christ anew, to be moved in awe at His presence. We are not asked to do this on blind faith alone. Throughout creation, God has left us signs and wonders of Himself, if only we would take notice. In his 1998 encyclical, Fides et Ratio, Pope St. John Paul II begins, “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth…” In our contemplation of the Word along with the created world, we discover the fullness of the truth of Christ. Blessed Nicolas Steno provides a poignant witness of this through his life. A world-renowned 17th century scient...
Embassy Vatican: Some Demystifications…
A change of presidential administrations typically leads to changes in U.S. diplomatic personnel abroad, especially at the ambassadorial level. This, in turn, leads to speculations, some of them zany, about the post of U.S. ambassador to the Holy See (typically mislabeled as “U.S. ambassador to the Vatican”). Herewith, then, some clarifications and demystifications about this position. The entity that sends and receives ambassadors is not “the Vatican,” but the Holy See. “The Vatican” means several things. “The Vatican” can be a stand-in for the independent micro-state known as “Vatican City State” (Stato della Città del Vaticano), created by the 1929 Lateran Pacts. It can refer to the complex of buildings adjacent to the Papal Basilica of St. Peter’s. But the entity that sends and receive...
Exploring Jericho — the Easter Bread Basket of the Hagia Sophia, Herod’s Hellacious Hippodrome, a Roadway Fit for a King (and Blind Beggars), and Zacchaeus’ Running Path …
Notes from the Author: 1) First and foremost–I offer this post to Our Lord through the intercession of His Mother and St. Joseph: in reparation for my sins and the sins of the world, for our repentance, and for an enduring peace throughout the Middle East and the world as quickly as possible. 2) It has been a while since I have posted. My previous post can be read here: https://zistezesto.wordpress.com/2024/04/21/chapter-7-exploring-little-known-sites-in-the-holy-land-stairway-to-the-sanhedrin-the-mosque-of-the-ascension-the-humble-empty-tomb-of-our-lady-and-st-stephens-battleground/ 3) As a reminder, copy/paste GPS Coordinates listed below into Google Maps to see or travel to each location. Satellite imagery used below is from Google Earth. 4) I apologize for any a...
