The image of the Christ Child wrapped in swaddling clothes in the straw-filled manger surrounded by nodding donkeys and loving, weary parents is so familiar to us, it is as though we were eyewitnesses of the birth. We have read and heard the story again and again as part of our core faith tradition
Karol Wojtyla has always had a deep eucharistic piety. In 2003 he released his most recent encyclical, Ecclesia de Eucharistia, emphasizing the bonds between the Eucharist and the church. Last spring he announced the beginning of a eucharistic year, which began on Oct. 7 and will culminate at the me
On the weekend before Advent’s onset, CNN ran a special called The Fight Over Faith. At one point in the coverage of the conflict between Bible-believing Christians and secularists, someone, expressing what seems to be a conviction of many of her fellow belivers, professed a strict interpretat
Culpability
The articles by Archbishop Harry Flynn and Thomas P. Rausch, S.J., (10/18), and Archbishop Francis Hurley’s letter (11/8), dealing with the one strike and you’re out approach to pedophile priests, clearly state many important considerations.
One not addressed is the
In the Liturgy of the Hours, the church salutes the expected Messiah as the Orient from on high (Lk 1:78). The appellation pictures the sun rising from the East to shed its glory on a world enshrouded in darkness. The French term Levant uses the same metaphor to refer to the eastern littoral of the
There rsquo s a well-worn Yiddish story about a yeshiva bokher seminarian who defiantly informs his old rabbi that he has become an apikoyres unbeliever And how long have you studied asks the rabbi suspiciously For five years replies the young apostate Ha snorts the rabbi five yearsand he
In Wonderful and Dark Is This Road Emilie Griffin the respected author or co-editor of 14 books including Turning Reflections on the Experience of Conversion and Clinging The Experience of Prayer has written in a comfortably ruminative tone an accessible introduction to mysticism Griffin ha