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First, what do I mean by “Christmas Clutter”. I don’t mean the boxes of unwanted presents, extra Christmas lights that don’t work, abandoned wrapping paper, leftover food or your tree that’s dropping its needles. I’m talking about all the stuff that has accumulated around the simple stories of Christmas as recorded in the gospels. Christmas is cluttered up with everything from Frosty the Snowman to Rudolph, Santa Claus and his elves and much much more. In fact, the nativity stories began to be elaborated and exaggerated from the very beginning. The Protoevangelium of James and the writings of Justin Martyr show fantastical elements entering the story from the early second century. In my book The Mystery of the Magi  I explain how the Magi story especially began to be cluttered up...

Thus the Word of God while yet in the bosom of the Father was known to the Father alone; but when he was clothed with flesh as a word is clothed with a voice, then he was first made manifest and known…Thomas Aquinas For most of us meditation does not come easily. Meditation is a work of the mind, seeking to penetrate more deeply into the richness of reality. It is a kind of reasoning, moving from one thing to another, seeking connections and implications. Yet meditation is not just any reasoning; it’s a reasoning motivated by a strong desire simply to see and to understand. Love is its inspiration, as well as its sustaining and driving force. This is what brings us back to meditation again and again, even when it is difficult or seemingly without fruit. The birth of Jesus Christ in Bethleh...

Don’t be afraid. Let these final days of Advent be a kairos, a moment of grace, to seek the peace on earth that angels with divine warrant promise. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing! is one of my favorite Christmas hymns, precisely because it showcases this notion of Jesus’ coming as the work of reconciliation. Charles Wesley and George Whitefield, the founders of Methodism, were its authors, publishing it in 1739. Sin as the problem that makes Christmas necessary is right up front. What do the “herald angels sing?” They glorify the Newborn King. They echo the Good News that the Shepherds heard about “Peace on earth!” But Wesley and Whitefield make clear why there is “Peace on earth and mercy mild.” It’s because “God and sinners [are] reconciled.” Sin robs us of peace, which is why Jesus’ first...

I AM the Wayto heaven’s roadbut you cannot comewith such a loadof things so heavyyou think you kneadwhere only livingbread will feed. I AM the treasure,I AM the King,I AM the windbeneath your winglike petals fallingin the midst of May,for My smallest birdsto carry away;I scatter My pearlsin the King’s highway. I AM this breadWho is lifted up.I AM this winepoured in your cup.Lamb of Sorrowsupon the table,I AM the Priest,Firstborn of Abel. I AMpole star guidingto aurora’s light;dark rose hidingin a garden bright;Love-gift bidingfor Christmas night.I AM cockcrow,I AM vesper’s end;the faithful shelter,the sturdy friend. I AM the LifeWho sends My Breathto resuscitate youin this valley of death.I AM the TruthWho sets you free;will your face not turnto look upon Me? Join Our Telegram Group : Salv...

The team took special care to recreate the wear from foot traffic. Drawing on references in religious texts and relics, a team of Israeli archaeologists has recreated a panel of flooring of the Roman-period Jewish Temple. The work is being praised for its accuracy. It shows details that Jesus himself might have seen when he walked the earth more than 2,000 years-ago. According to a report from Reuters, the project took seven months to complete. The result of the efforts is a one-square-meter panel of marble flooring. The panel incorporates several different types of stone, including limestone, Dead Sea stone, and imported marble. As the Temple is known to have been designed by King Herod, who followed Roman cultural trends, the stones were arranged in “Opus Sectile,” a popular Roman style ...

VATICAN CITY — The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the following note on Dec. 21 after “diverse and sometimes conflicting pronouncements in the mass media by bishops, Catholic associations, and experts” had “raised questions about the morality of the use of these vaccines.” Note on the morality of using some anti-Covid-19 vaccines The question of the use of vaccines, in general, is often at the center of controversy in the forum of public opinion. In recent months, this Congregation has received several requests for guidance regarding the use of vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid-19, which, in the course of research and production, employed cell lines drawn from tissue obtained from two abortions that occurred in the last century. At the same time, di...

If you have set up your nativity scene by now you probably put the figures in a quaint, wooden stable shed. With a rickety roof and rough beams, the ox and donkey shelter there along with the sheep, the shepherds, Mary and Joseph and the wise men. But hang on. Was Jesus really born in a barn because there was no room in the inn? When we study the Scriptures in detail and learn more about the history and culture of the times, it helps us understand what the birth of Jesus was really like. The idea that there was a rustic old inn along with a grumpy innkeeper who turned Mary and Joseph away is a feature of how the Christmas stories were told in the Middle Ages in Europe. When they heard that the baby was born in a stable they also pictured a “lowly cattle shed.” St. Francis was supposedly th...

In the Gospel for this Fourth Sunday of Advent, we step back nine months to March 25th, the feast of the Annunciation, an all-but-hidden event that changed the world. God, whose focal presence departed the Temple just prior to the Babylonian invasion (cf Ez 10:18) and the loss of the Ark of the Covenant, now returns to the ark of Mary’s womb. The glorious presence of God returns now to His people, in an obscure town of fewer than three hundred, a town so small that no road led to it. We are reading here of a pivotal moment in the history of mankind. God not only returns to His people but also becomes one with them in the Incarnation. We do well to consider four aspects of this crucial moment. As we do so, we consider not only Mary’s glories but ours as well (in a subordinate yet real way)....

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Dec 18, 2020 I wish to address the statement promulgated a week ago by five bishops insisting that it is in all cases immoral to allow oneself to be vaccinated with any vaccine which has been tainted by the use of fetal cell lines. This statement was apparently written by the very articulate Athanasius Schneider, an auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, and promulgated jointly by Bishop Schneider; Jan Pawel Lenga, the retired bishop of Karaganda, Kazakhstan; Archbishop Tomash Peta of Astana, Kazakhstan; Cardinal Janis Pujats, the 90-year-old former Archbishop of Riga in Latvia; and Joseph Strickland, bishop of Tyler, Texas. The statement was released on the Crisis Magazine website. It had been added to our library also, for a few...

Sister Mary Elizabeth, vicar general of the Sisters of Life, holds 6-month-old Esther at the religious community’s Holy Respite residence in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of New York City May 4, 2016. Holy Respite serves as a home and support center for pregnant women in crisis and new mothers. (CNS photo/Gregory A. Shemitz) “Please stop.” “Please shut up.” “I … can’t … take this.” Under a mask and a winter cap, a young Black woman stood across the street from Planned Parenthood in lower Manhattan. She has been directly outside the front door after her time inside, but there were two men there with a megaphone talking about babies dying and slaughter. She looked like she wanted to be anywhere else on the planet other than outside the building where she just started to do some...

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Dec 15, 2020 It is difficult to offer a comprehensive critique of our Godless modern culture simply because it is so difficult to know where to begin. In this instance, I will start at the top, so to speak, with a consideration of the absurdity of our captivity to the modern bureaucratic State. I grant that it is not always easy to say exactly which modern bureaucratic solutions we would be better off without, but there is a peculiar feature of our intensely bureaucratic way of life today which merits serious reflection. By creating and funding comprehensive “programs” to “ensure” the well-being of entire populations, the modern State consistently creates fresh burdens which limit both human freedom and the pursuit of more authenti...

Vatican City, Dec 17, 2020 / 01:00 pm MT (CNA).- The Vatican’s liturgy congregation will permit priests to say up to four Masses on Christmas Day, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God on Jan. 1, and Epiphany to accommodate more worshipers amid the pandemic. Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, signed a decree announcing the permission Dec. 16. The decree said that diocesan bishops may allow priests in their diocese to say up to four Masses on the three solemnities “in view of the situation brought about by the worldwide spread of the pandemic, by virtue of the faculties conceded to this Congregation by the Holy Father Francis, and due to the persistence of the general contagion of the so-called COVID-19 virus.” Acc...