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As Christians, we tend to assume that the idea of God coming into ones’ life is always an attractive concept.  However, that’s a bit naïve.  Having the almighty creator of the universe come into one’s reality could also be an upsetting prospect.  When doing evangelism, I have encountered people who understood the concept of “letting Jesus into your life” very well, but didn’t want that to happen, because it might upset the apple cart, so to speak.  A God living within you might want to change things.  He might want to take over.  Are we ready for that? In this Sunday’s Readings, we encounter situations in which people found the “invasion” of God into their lives a little bit distressing.  The Readings remind us that Jesus is not a passive presence within ...

By Phil Lawler ( bio – articles – email ) | Dec 18, 2019 If you asked loyal Catholics to subsidize a film dramatizing the life of Elton John, you’d get a disappointing return. But ask them to contribute to the needs of the Holy Father, and you’ll see real generosity. If you ask Catholics to invest in the London real-estate market, or in a shady Italian bank, or a bankrupt hospital, don’t expect much. But say that the Pope has charitable projects in mind, and the checkbooks will open. So for years the Vatican has asked the faithful to support the Pope’s needs, emphasizing his charitable projects—and then invested the returns in London real estate, a shady Italian bank, a bankrupt hospital, and, yes, a film about Elton John. That’s the fundamental scandal behind the latest financ...

Man holding baby (CC0 Jude Beck on Unsplash) The other day, a friend noted on Twitter that his wife was not granted paid maternity leave by her employer, the Catholic Church. He noted that he made enough for her to take unpaid maternity. This led me to look into what the US Bishops have proposed regarding maternity leave. Now, I want to share a little of that investigation. Current USCCB Policy The USCCB site currently has: Following the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA), all qualified employees in the United States are entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave for family or medical reasons, including for the serious health condition of the employee, parent, spouse or child, pregnancy or care of a newborn child, or for the adoption or foster care of a child. T...

The holiday season is in full swing, which means lots of gatherings where you’ve got the chance to demonstrate what an extremely awesome uncle you genuinely are. If you were just a pretty good uncle, you could probably get away with giving your niece or nephew a dollar. But dang it, you’re a certified cool uncle — one who knows a bevy of cool uncle tricks. That’s why you’ll give them a dollar that you’ve folded into a jet fighter right before their eyes.  Origami takes practice, so try this out a few times before you give a full performance. Also, do your best to start with a nice, crisp bill. There are lots of folds going on here, so a new bill and attention to sharp folds and creases will pay off with a much better final product.  Start by orienting your bill in the same way as...

Snap Stills/Shutterstock In 1996, Sports Illustrated‘s Gary Smith wrote about the close friendship that James “Radio” Kennedy, a man with an intellectual disability, had with members of a high school football team in South Carolina. The story eventually became the inspiration for the 2003 film “Radio.”  On Sunday morning, “Radio” Kennedy, the man integral to the Anderson, SC. community, died, T.L. Hanna High School announced. Kennedy, 73, had been battling health problems and former head football coach Harold Jones said that he died at a hospice facility in Anderson. “It’s sad. It’s very sad for us,” Jones said. “Everybody loved him at the school and anybody he met loved him. He was just so outgoing and loved to h...

Pope Francis said that for his birthday on December 17, he was shown a unique Nativity scene, dubbed “Let Mum Rest.” In the depiction, which has been making the rounds this year on social media, Mary is sleeping and Joseph is holding a tired Baby with his arms outstretched in a typical newborn pose. The pope said the image shows “the tenderness of a family, of a marriage.” “How many of you have to share the night between husband and wife for the baby boy or girl who cries, cries, and cries,” he reflected. This is, precisely, the message of the Nativity scene, the pope explained. And we can also invite the Holy Family to our home, where there are joys and concerns, where every day we wake up, eat, and sleep close to our loved ones. The manger is a domestic Gospel. Francis this year has been...

The novelist supported a tax expert who was fired for dissenting from gender orthodoxy Progressives are denouncing JK Rowling this week, insisting that she has ruined Harry Potter in a single tweet. One can almost hear them cry, “burn the books!”  What’s puzzling about this is that JK Rowling is hardly a conservative opponent of all things liberal. On the contrary, she’s the consummate liberal with all the right opinions for an elite culture producer. So what opinion of hers could possibly warrant such severe sanctions? What could she say that has the power to ruin Potter forever? Rowling wrote a single tweet in support of Maya Forstater, a tax expert who was fired from her job at the Centre for Global Development for stating on social media that a person cannot change their biologica...

By Tom Hoopes, December 19, 2019 It is appropriate that the Church focuses on St. Joseph for the Fourth Week of Advent, Year A. Joseph is the patron saint of preparing for Christmas — and, as Patron of the Church, for the Second Coming of Christ. We are closer than ever before to the Second Coming of Christ. We are living in the world’s “fourth week of Advent” — the end days, according to the Church; “the last hour.” It’s time for last-minute preparations, the same preparations as Joseph made. First, Joseph took his wife’s cross onto himself. When Mary is found with child, “Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly.” You don’t have to know anything about the ancient world to understand what this means. If a m...

When it comes to our struggle in personal prayer there are some things that we need to unlearn. For too many, private prayer is often a formal, even stuffy affair, that drips of boredom and unnecessary formality and has lots of rules. Perhaps we learned some of our lessons too well. And yet many of the youngest children have not learned these lessons, and they seem to pray with great ease. They are unassuming and will say almost anything to God. It is true that children may have a lot learn about public and liturgical prayer, but when it comes to personal and private prayer they have much to teach us. Perhaps a parable is in order: A young girl received her First Holy Communion and, when she returned to her pew, she was noticed by her parents to be in rather deep prayer. After Mass they as...

ROME – Last Friday, Pope Francis took part in the inauguration of a new headquarters in Rome for Scholas Occurrentes, a high-tech network of schools around the world inspired by the pontiff. The first lady of his native Argentina, Fabiola Yañez, was on hand, as were the first ladies of Brazil, Paraguay, Colombia and Belize. At one stage Francis and Yañez exchanged a hug of greeting, which was captured by a photographer who later discovered a curiosity in the image: On his right hip, under his white papal cassock, Francis was wearing a small black electronic device with a green light and various buttons. On Dec. 18, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruini told Crux the device was a rarely used radio microphone, which had to be put on the pope in that tight space because of the angles and acoustics ...

NEW YORK — President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponents are courting voters with less than a year before the 2020 election – and many of them are chasing support from a variety of religious voters. The Trump campaign announced last week that the president’s re-election efforts would include launching three coalitions: “Evangelicals for Trump,” “Catholics for Trump” and “Jewish Voices for Trump.” Despite being impeached by the House, the Trump campaign’s focus on these three religious groups aims to expand the president’s support, especially in battleground states where the former real-estate mogul won in 2016. An analysis of the 2018 midterm elections conducted by Pew Research Center found continuity in the voting patterns of key religious groups. For example, white evangelica...

O Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum,super quem continebunt reges os suum,quem Gentes deprecabuntur:veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare. O Root of Jesse, standing as a sign among the peoples;before you kings will shut their mouths,to you the nations will make their prayer:Come and deliver us, and delay no longer. It may be that today’s O Antiphon reveals an unfamiliar title for Christ: Radix Jesse, or Root of Jesse. Who is Jesse? Why is Christ the root of this man? In 1 Samuel we learn that Jesse, the son of Obed and the grandson of Ruth, had eight sons, and the youngest was David. During the reign of King Saul, the Prophet Samuel was sent by God the Bethlehem to anoint the next king of Israel. David was summoned from the flocks he was tending, and was anointed by Samuel (1 Sam...