Winter, for many of us, signals the end of the year. It is a time when we reflect on our labor, what we’ve achieved, what we haven’t achieved, what we will do better or make right. But how much of this reflection is focused on the joy and mystery of the Nativity? “Census at [...]
The Holy Trinity encompasses the narrative of salvation, allowing the account of our origin, redemption, and culmination as the people of God. The movement can only fully be understood by this three-fold activity. On December 22, 1994, my new bride and I were enjoying our third day of wedded bliss at Myrtle Beach on our [...]
In this Advent season, we wait in expectation, we hope for the coming of the Lord Who has come and Who is coming and Who will come again. We remind ourselves of His absence from the lives of so many in the world today, and we pray that graces may come to cure us of [...]
The Advent wind begins to stir With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir, It's dark at breakfast, dark at tea, And in between we only see Clouds hurrying across the sky And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry And branches bending to the gale Against great skies all silver pale The world seems travelling into [...]
French composer Guy Ropartz wrote Le Miracle de Saint Nicolas in 1905, based on a text by René Avril. From the Naxos recording of this work: This legend in sixteen scenes introduces the story, familiar to the people of Lorraine, of St Nicholas bringing back to life the three boys murdered and pickled by the [...]
Nothing breaks through melancholy like a baby. During Advent, we wait for that moment of absolute newness that we need within but cannot muster, that moment when the whole of the divine nature, the whole meaning of universes beyond number, lies helpless before us. On Monday of this week, students met with me in the new [...]
This Advent season does not center on our achievement; it is not the time of puffing ourselves up, but of waiting for God to reveal, as only God can, the new thing under the sun that breaks the great cycle of vanity. The greatest things are born from humility. There is something essentially comic about [...]
Robert Hugh Benson's "The Lord of the World" is a cracking tale of science fiction and alternate history, but the lessons it teaches have to do with spiritual facts fitting for your Advent preparations. It will also help you get ready for the end of the world. Did you know that “Dies Irae,” the hymn [...]
The challenge for the soldier at Christmas is to question his agency, and to reflect upon the birth of the Christ child as both the pronouncement of demise for those who intend to make war, and of salvation for those who suffer its symptoms. In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God created. In the [...]
As our culture seems increasingly to reject its own hard-earned wisdom, it is good to remember that we wait in hope. It was disconcerting this week, reading Plato’s Phaedrus with my section of freshman at Wyoming Catholic College, to realize once again that the sophisticated Athenian world of the 4th Century BC was a glittering [...]
In these uncertain times, we are constantly being urged to historicize Christ, as though He were merely a symbolic figure in a moribund and culturally discredited system of thought. But Advent reminds us of the deep promise of the Nicene Creed. He was, He is, and He is to come. In this Advent, we await [...]
Even the secular symbols of Christmas—the evergreen tree, holly and mistletoe, Santa Claus the great Gift Giver—all point to the divine presence. Which I suppose is one of the main lessons of this season: If you want to find the Everlasting Man, look where he is hidden. Of late I’ve grown rather cool toward Christmas. [...]
Advent has only just begun but many of us are already thinking of Christmas. In one sense, this is fair enough. Advent is a time of preparation for our celebration of the birth of Christ and it is appropriate that we should be looking forward expectantly to the coming of Our Lord. In another sense, [...]
In the 1820s, Washington Irving was credited with inspiring the romantic revival of Christmas in America. His Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon, Gentleman relayed sentimental tales of the British holiday with all its romance and traditions. The five Christmas tales were later published in 1875 as a separate collection titled Old Christmas.* Having lived in London and its surroundings [...]