Readings for Sunday, Jan 3, 2016 The Epiphany of the Lord Up until now, all has been quite humble. A donkey-ride to a dusty town south of Jerusalem. Hotel rooms all booked up. Giving birth in a stable and laying…
Epiphany
Sing A Song Of Joy!
All the ends of the Earth have seen the saving power of God! I don’t know about you, but the refrain of today’s responsorial psalm makes my heart sing for joy. All the ends of the Earth have in fact…
Realigning Your Resolutions for Relationship
Editor’s Note: Please join me in welcoming Jacqueline Vick to the New Evangelizers blog! As a child, I rang in every year with the same routine. My parents would allow me to stay up until midnight, and as the countdown…
Cracking Open Our Hearts of Stone
Editor’s Note: This is a re-post from 2013 that fits in very well with the Year of Mercy. It wasn’t so long ago that my motto was, “I will forgive, but I’ll never forget.” Sometime later I read, “To forgive,…
Christian Prayer: A Catholic Tradition
Editor’s Note: This is a re-posting from 2014 on prayer which I thought could be useful as we contemplate resolutions for the New Year. At times referred to as the Divine Office, the Liturgy of the Hours, or the Breviary,…
The First “Rocky”
Often my Protestant friends will allege that when Christ declares, “I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the powers of death shall not prevail against it.”1 – that He wasn’t really…
God With Us is Just the Beginning
Many disciples of Jesus through history (including more than a few canonized saints!) have written about periods of spiritual dryness–where prayer seems unusually tough, God seems distant, or in some hard-to-express way, things just aren’t right in one’s life. For…
Feast of the Holy Family
Readings for Sunday, Dec 27, 2015 Every year right after Christmas, we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family. There is an important reason for this. It’s easy to think the “incarnation” means God took on a human body, that…
Ponderables
With the commercial side of Christmas over, we can now quietly and simply, focus on the spiritual side of Christmas and the coming New Year. I know many of us have already embarked on a spiritual Christmas by celebrating Advent…
Christmas Day 2015
For a child has been born for us, a son is given to us…and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9: 6 (NRSV) Good news! A savior was born into our dark and…