Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph

With today’s Feast in honor of the Holy Family, we continue our celebration of the Octave of Christmas. The whole Octave is meant to be seen as one day, in which we return again and again to stand before the manger, gazing with wonder and joy at the infant Jesus,...

Christmas

The Christmas mystery is too profound to be limited to a single celebration. The Church dedicates four distinct liturgies to this feast, full of Scriptures for us to ponder. Then she extends the Christmas celebration throughout a joyful Octave. In our prayer, in...

Fourth Sunday of Advent

In the final days of Advent, the Scripture readings of the weekday liturgies often overlap with the readings of the Sundays. Today we return to two of the most important Advent passages, the prophecy given to the resistant King Ahaz, and the difficult challenge...

Third Sunday of Advent

This beautiful season of preparation teaches us how to combine two dispositions that balance each other. On one hand, we are filled with joyful anticipation, for “the coming of the Lord is at hand.” On the other hand, we wait in patience, for we do not know when the...

Second Sunday of Advent

In today’s Gospel we find the first mention of John the Baptist in the Bible. This is also the first time we hear of him in Advent. We will turn to him often throughout this Season, for he is the divinely appointed messenger sent to prepare the way for the coming of...