Sr Hosea Rupprecht The week before Christmas, I encountered airport crowds waiting to board their flights, but spilling out of the gate area and hampering the rest of us trying to get where we were going. I got stuck behind a guy dragging his bag but laser-focused on his phone. His bag kept hitting people…
Handel’s Messiah offers soul-food this Christmas season, writes Fr Vincent Ferrer Bagan OP The “Hallelujah” chorus from George Frideric Handel’s Messiah is probably the most well-known classical piece of music written for choir. People love to hear it, and they love to sing it. If you have sung in a school, college or church choir,…
David Mills One of the most important rules for living in the world is: You are probably not who you think you are, and many others know you better than you know yourself. This is an old-guy lesson, I’m afraid, one of those lessons one learns from long and painful, often embarrassing experiences. We charge…
Paulina Guzik Every year on the feast of the Epiphany, January 6, Polish cities get flooded with joyful Three Kings Parades. Designed as theatrical performances that recall the historical event of Jesus’ birth and the visit of the Magi who worshiped him 2,000 years ago, the parades’ purpose is to familiarise their audiences with the…
Every year, the Vatican unveils a Nativity scene from a different diocese, often using materials or artistic styles from the particular region or country where the diocese is located.
It’s usually fathers who ask me, and usually – about two-thirds of the time – daughters they’re asking for. Their children want to become writers or journalists, and they ask me to tell them how to do that. (No one has ever asked me to talk to his child about becoming an editor.)
The 20th Century was one of history’s most violent and war-torn, marked by atheistic, anti-human revolutions and ideologies that continue today.
The Church offers us a richer way to celebrate Christmas, writes Amy Welborn For Catholics, great feasts like Christmas don’t come at us out of the blue: In the secular world, ‘Christmas’ seems to start in October! However, our approach to this holiday as Catholics must be different, and it can be. We can put…
John Mulderig One promising way to get in the holiday mood is to watch a Christmas-themed movie. And, since yuletide films naturally tend to qualify as family-friendly, they can also provide an opportunity to gather the clan, make some popcorn and relax together. Following, in alphabetical order, are capsule reviews of eight such pictures with…
Christina Rosetti’s poem, In the Bleak Midwinter, is a Christmas classic. “In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone. . .” As Advent begins and the first wintry weather sets in, those words come to mind. As I write, today is such a day – gusty…
Ruadhán Jones