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Just as when He awoke in swaddling clothes in a manger, Christ can awaken in our hearts in prayer. In that mysterious moment, His eyes communicate the same invincible joy that they did when they gazed into the eyes of His virgin mother. We know in that single instant what she knew — that He has given Himself to us and for us, and that we are the object of His delight.  If we allow ourselves to be captivated by His gaze of love, we will soon find that we cannot but give ourselves to Him in return. Just as He opened His eyes and saw the world for the first time, when we allow Him to open His eyes in our prayer, it is as if we have been seen for the first time. When we rest with Him in silent prayer, the Word who made the world opens His eyes anew and sees us and the whole world again th...

Photo by guenterguni / Getty Images. Medieval monks had a terrible time concentrating. And concentration was their lifelong work! Their tech was obviously different from ours. But their anxiety about distraction was not. They complained about being overloaded with information, and about how, even once you finally settled on something to read, it was easy to get bored and turn to something else. They were frustrated by their desire to stare out of the window, or to constantly check on the time (in their case, with the Sun as their clock), or to think about food or sex when they were supposed to be thinking about God. They even worried about getting distracted in their dreams. Sometimes they accused demons of making their minds wander. Sometimes they blamed the body’s base instincts. But the...

The Sunday that falls in the Octave of the Solemnity of Christmas is dedicated to celebrating the Holy Family.  The Readings for this Sunday focus on the rights and responsibilities of family members toward each other, and the Gospel focuses on the role of the “most forgotten” member of the Holy Family, St. Joseph, who cared for and protected the Blessed Mother and infant Jesus through the dangerous early years of Jesus’ childhood. God sets a father in honor over his children;a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons.Whoever honors his father atones for sins,and preserves himself from them.When he prays, he is heard;he stores up riches who reveres his mother.Whoever honors his father is gladdened by children,and, when he prays, is heard.Whoever reveres his father will live a long...

“By God, you will be no doctor or apothecary, but a great composer.”—Jean-François Le Sueur, to Hector Berlioz, upon hearing the premier of the Messe Solennelle Saint-Roch Church, Paris Its premier in 1825 marked one of the most remarkable musical debuts ever by a composer, and the score’s rediscovery 167 years later in a church attic is one of the most astounding events in musicological history. For the composer of this work eventually destroyed all but one of the surviving copies of the score. This is the Messe solennelle of the young Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), who had defied his parents’ wishes for him to be a doctor—earning him the curse of his mother that would haunt him for the rest of his life—fleeing his home to study with the composer Jean-François Le Sueur. Berlioz had little mu...

The field of astronomy this decade delivered an embarrassment of riches: stunning accomplishment after stunning accomplishment from the exploration of space. Humans sent robots to the farthest reaches of the solar system, to the sun, to the gas giant Jupiter, and more. Meanwhile, our telescopes peered deeper into the cosmos. They showed us images never seen before, like the first-ever image of a black hole, which was just declared to be Science’s “breakthrough of the year.” We put together our favorite astronomy images and videos from the 2010s, in no particular order. Some of these images are awe inspiring for their beauty, or their remoteness, or for helping us understand our tiny place in the universe. Others are awe inspiring for the engineering achievements they represent, and give ho...

What is a perennial truth if nothing other than a truth which springs up every year? We who are strangers and sojourners in the city of man, we who aspire towards citizenship in the city of God, we know that Christmas is all about celebrating Christ’s birth. All of Christian literature, all of the literature that celebrates or dimly shadows Christendom stands in testimony that Christendom is the Feast! Search your Homer. Search your Virgil. Sit with Beowulf at the mead-benches in Hrothgar’s Heorot or with Gawain at the halls of Arthur or King Bertilak. All of us, pilgrims proceeding to Canterbury know that our pilgrimage begins and ends with feasting! The culmination of Christendom is centered around the sacrum convivium, the sacred feast in which Christ Himself is ultimately consumed! And...

We should do this everywhere! St. Anne Church of the Cow Island community in Abbeville, La., blessed their town and farms with 100 gallons of holy water with the help of a crop dusting plane. The Diocese of Lafayette posted several photos of the blessing on Facebook. They also wished readers a Merry Christmas. Here’s the post below: The full text reads, “Fr. Matthew Barzare and parishioners of St. Anne Church in Cow Island enlisted the help of a crop duster pilot to bless their community. They loaded 100 gallons of holy water into the plane and the pilot sprayed the water onto the town and the nearby farms. “Parishioners also brought water from home to the airstrip to be blessed by Fr. Barzare. The blessing was the brainchild of L’Eryn Detraz, a missionary currently stationed in Ohio who i...

A mosaic of Mary as Mother of the Church is seen above St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican in this April 13, 2011, file photo. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) The title of Mary, “Mother of the Church,” was officially promulgated alongside Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) in 1964. It was instituted by Pope Francis as a liturgical memorial only last year. Henceforth, it is celebrated the Monday after Pentecost Sunday. Its fixed structure in the liturgical calendar signifies Mary’s continued motherly mediation from heaven; that today she still gathers with us and calls down the Holy Spirit upon the mystical body of her Son. The establishment of this memorial, this lex orandi (law of praying), specifically renews the apostolic lex credendi (law of believing). Pope S...

Pope Francis Preaching in Madison Square Garden, September 25, 2015 (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Antoine Mekary / ALETEIA) Recently, Pope Francis answered questions from high school students and suggested they convert non-Catholics through their authenticity and example. In so explaining, he suggested they don’t push their faith on unbelieving students. This is generally a good, practical strategy. Unfortunately, some misread what he said. They read it just as not doing the latter without seeing the former. I want to point out what Francis said, then explain two points: practical evangelization and “proselytism.” The Pope’s Words To High School Students On Friday, December 20, Pope Francis visited Pilo Albertelli high school and took students’ questions. The Vatican only has the text in Italian, ...

Foreign workers are gathering their families, packing their bags and leaving Brunei, where a ban on celebrating Christmas has been enforced since 2014 by an authoritarian regime happy to impose stiff penalties for any breaches of the law. Fearing Muslims would be led astray and convert to Christianity, the sultan of Brunei imposed full Sharia law in April, a culmination of an all-imposing Islamic legal system that was introduced step by step over the last six years. In a move that bears striking similarities to Biblical stories from the Roman occupation of the Holy Land, Christians are only allowed to celebrate Christmas within the privacy of their own homes and only after they have notified authorities. Any breaches can result in jail terms of up to five years and fines of up to US$20,000...

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Advent is a season for us to rediscover the mystery of the Church. She is the Bride who awaits the Bridegroom with eager anticipation. The shining glow of a secret joy glistens in her eyes. To glimpse her fierce majesty is to be drawn into her invincible dynamism.  For she awakens a longing that nothing can overcome and in the deepest center of the heart, brings to birth a new certitude. The Bride knows, in a way that no one else can know, the truth and goodness that the Bridegroom imparts, and each new gift that he gives makes her yearn for Him all the more. Conversely, without the Church, we are deprived of the passion that the Christian faith demands. We can only strain for what lies ahead as we learn to see the goodness of the life that He has given us now. The life of the Church ...