Cambridge MA I am sure that every reader has by now seen the picture accompanying this blog of the New York policeman kneeling down to give a homeless man poor and cold and barefoot on a winter rsquo s night a warm pair of shoes that he had bought with his own money The story was told with sim

The instructor a Presbyterian called my choice to preach about Mary ldquo bold rdquo We were asked to choose a piece of scripture and then deliver a ten-minute sermon Because it was the start of Advent I chose the annunciation from Luke rsquo s gospel To me Mary rsquo s calm and passive ac

We have long lived in an area of the mountains where we often lose our power during winter storms The wind howls the snow slices the air sideways and our electricity goes out The first power outage of the season usually catches us off-guard After that we know to have flashlights and candles ha

My friend a pastor received an irate email from a parishioner a Eucharistic minister At one of the previous weekend rsquo s Masses one too many ministers had arrived at the altar to distribute Holy Communion As the last to ascend he had been asked to return to the pew Understandably the eve

Fr. James Martin, S.J., writes "desire is a key way that God speaks to us, whether in Advent or the rest of the year."

We rsquo re approaching that time of year when oversensitive atheists lash out against nativity scenes and oversensitive Christians reply by raging on about the supposed War on Christmas One name I was surprised to see added to the list this year was the Holy Father himself Pope Benedict XVI whos

Cambridge MA I was in Chicago November 15-20 for the convention of the American Academy of Religion which meets annually with the Society of Biblical Literature Read about the related controversies here Some 12 000 professors gathered not for one large plenary but for a vast and wide-reachi