The very finding of a Child wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger—is this not a miracle in itself? Then there is the miracle when a particular mission, hidden in a person’s heart, really reaches its goal, bringing God’s peace and joy where there were nothing but despair and resignation; when someone succeeds in [...]
26th December, St. Stephen Day 2 of the Octave of Christmas Christ the Lord is born today; today, the Saviour has appeared. Earth echoes songs of angel choirs, archangels’ joyful praise. Today on earth his friends exult. Glory to God in the highest, alleluia 12 Days of Christmas Carol: On the second day of Christmas, [...]
Bethlehem today is a bustling, modern city on the side of a hill, but at the time of Jesus’ birth it would have been a settlement of simple cave houses. In The Everlasting Man, G.K. Chesterton famously salvaged the caveman of popular imagination—suggesting that the neanderthal was a brilliant artist, not a brute. He then [...]
Solemnity of The Nativity of Our Lord Christ the Lord is born today; today, the Saviour has appeared. Earth echoes songs of angel choirs, archangels’ joyful praise. Today on earth his friends exult. Glory to God in the highest, alleluia. Poem: Scott Cairns - "The Nativity" As you lean in, you’ll surely apprehend the tiny [...]
"Stalag 17," set in a German prisoner of war camp during World War II, is a genuine Christmas movie, albeit a complex one: at once a mystery, a comedy, a war story, and a morality play, all wrapped in barbed wire. Die Hard changed the definition of a “Christmas movie,” mostly providing dads an excuse [...]
How can we rebuild culture and community in a world where we seem to be glued together in pragmatic tribes, looking across the divide at deadly enemies? One answer is to rediscover the parts of life that make up the whole of a healthy community, and what better way to embark on our study of [...]
"A Christmas Carol" is, as might be expected of a meditation on the spirit of Christmas, a literary work that operates most profoundly on the level of theology. It could be argued and has been argued that, after Shakespeare, Charles Dickens is the finest writer in the English language. His works have forged their way [...]
Here are ten outstanding Christmas-themed classical pieces, including both the well-known and the little-known. 1. G.F. Handel: Messiah Though especially popular at Christmas time, it is only “Part the First” of Handel's Messiah that pertains to the season—the latter two sections address Christ’s passion and resurrection. There are some 100 versions of this magisterial work currently [...]
It’s remarkable that "Amahl" should be the most frequently performed opera worldwide, considering this is a work created for a specific seasonal context. Yet in another sense it’s understandable, given how Gian Carlo Menotti brilliantly scaled down the luxuriant demands of opera to create a small-budget piece that just about any group of skilled performers [...]
Hector Berlioz was a professed atheist, but could anything as tender and touching as "L’Enfance du Christ" have been written by a man who did not believe? And what of Berlioz’s closing line to the work: “Oh my soul, what remains for you to do but shatter your pride before so great a mystery?" The [...]
At the Annunciation, in a room in Nazareth, the fresh innocence of Eve is recapitulated, but in a new configuration. This is the nature of creation: that all things general, to become real, must become particular. It should therefore not come as a surprise that God Himself should also take particular flesh from a particular [...]
Before He was born as Christ the King on earth, He was “born” in the “mind” and “heart” of God as Christ the King in Heaven. He was firstly born in eternity before time began, so that the glory that reigned in Heaven could also reign on earth, in Him. However, if God’s Son was [...]
In a true search for Christ, we cannot but find ourselves with Mary at our side. To be with her is to be at Nazareth as every hope is made true at the angel’s message, to be in Bethlehem as the Lord is manifested to the world, to be at Cana as his miracles pour [...]
T.S. Eliot’s “The Journey of the Magi” is as sincere a conversion poem as one can have it: No fancy light shining down from the heavens or a thunderous call to holiness; just one small event that left a Magus perplexed by a new worldview that was unsettling and strange, for it put into question [...]