As we bring the first week of Advent to closure there is a conjoining of the season of Advent with the traditional feast of St. Nicholas -- from whom the tradition of Santa Claus is at least partly derived. The figure of ...

Deacon and martyr he is called -- servant and witness. The Jerusalem Church called him forth, and laid hands on him, according to the Acts of the Apostles, to take care of the socially outcast women and children in a ...

My Mother used to say that Martha received a 'raw deal' from Luke the Gospel writer, and possibly from Jesus, himself. (She would have been careful about leveling any such charge at Jesus, however, respectful and full of ...

In both the spring and the fall of the year the Church invites us to recognize the great love of Jesus that is then imitated by his very human Church. Shortly after Pentecost each year the Church celebrates the Feast of ...

Listening to the so-called "super-committee" talk about their failure to achieve a compromise in the Senate the last few days sounds a bit like the first reading in today's liturgy from the book of Genesis: "He made me do ...

The readings from the Mass on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception are replete with images of grace. Choices are given to human persons to become all that God created us to be. The contrast between Eve, the "Mother ...

Every saint's feast day is actually a celebration of the life and mission of the whole Church that is made present in that person's journey. The Feasts of the Apostles and of Mary are most especially days that the whole ...

Today's liturgy offers us the paradox of God's intimacy or nearness, and the overwhelming power of God's glory.||In the memorial of Anne and Joachim, which tradition identifies as the parents of Mary and Grandparents of ...

Meditating on the readings and the subject of today's liturgical festival brought up three disparate insights that may be connected - they certainly point to the need for further reflection in my own life.||The Feast of ...

Back in 1978, the German Theologian, Karl Rahner, SJ, published a text in which he placed himself in the "voice" of St. Ignatius Loyola speaking to the human community of the 20th Century. It is an imaginative and daring ...