We might think the battle for Christmas is over words. But the struggle is waged at a far deeper level of our lives.
Spirituality
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Into the High Country
The days were lengthening. Daylight itself seemed brighter. The sap was rising in the trees, and with it I felt the wanderlust rising in me.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Lourdes Diary: Seven days at Massabieille: Part Two
‘Even before dawn, there is a Mass being celebrated, and pilgrims are already here, kneeling before the space, running their hands over the rock, praying the Rosary and hoping for healing, as they have been doing since 1858.’
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Father James Martin’s Lourdes diary
Something you don’t hear every day from a Jesuit: I’m here to pick up a cassock for my trip to Lourdes.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Catholics love to discuss doctrine and the church. Why are they shy about Jesus?
Catholic students are quick to talk about their experience of church—but what about their experience of Christ?
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Remembering the Christmas traditions of my family and the Holy Family
When I think about the Holy Family I remember other holy families as well, the ones who brought me up in the faith, who showed me how to love and who taught me how to celebrate Christmas.
Posted inFaith, Of Many Things
Of many things: Longing for nature
When I returned last fall to New York City after 30 years away, what demanded the most adjustment for me was the absence of light. “Welcome to New York,” I was told. The deprivation of daylight is one of the things New York apartment-dwellers have to endure.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Staying Catholic at Twenty-Something
Young adult Catholics are legion. Statistical surveys indicate as much. Yet when I step over the threshold of my parish church, I see very few of my peers.
Posted inFaith, News Analysis
The challenges and gifts of the homosexual priest
Facing the challenges and accepting the gifts offered by homosexual priests in the Catholic Church
Posted inFaith, Features
Facing the Crisis in the Priesthood
A generation has elapsed since the close of the Second Vatican Council, and the church has underscored the council’s extraordinary ecclesial and historical significance by beatifying, this Sept. 3, Pope John XXIII. At the same time, however, the beatification of Pope Pius IX highlighted the ti