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Poem: “A Christmas Carol- In the Bleak Mid-Winter”

Dec 25 16 • Christina Rossetti • 0 comments

A Christmas Carol In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter Long ago. Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him Nor earth sustain; Heaven and earth shall flee away When He comes to reign: […]

The Beauty of Sacramental Love

Dec 23 16 • Judie Brown • 0 comments

While preparing for the celebration of the birth of Christ this year, we must also think about the wonderful blessings that Joseph and Mary experienced when God chose them to be the parents of His Son. Mary, who was conceived without original sin, and Joseph, who was vowed to Mary’s virginity and to his role […]

Christ Has Come; He Will Come Again; I Can Say All is Well

Dec 23 16 • Mark Davis Pickup • 0 comments

Saint Ignatius was Bishop of Antioch overseeing 1st century Syrian Christians and was a disciple of the Apostle John. He wrote a letter to the Christians at Ephesus as he was being transported to Rome to face wild beasts in the arena. He said, “For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord […]

Pro-Family Leaders Launch Declaration on Marriage in Cape Town

Dec 22 16 • Marianna Orlandi, Ph.D • 1 comment

Pro-family leaders from around the world recently gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, to roll out and sign a declaration that aims to protect the family and traditional marriage. In its five short paragraphs, the Cape Town Declaration recognizes the family as the “first and primordial community” and “the bedrock of civil society.” It reaffirms […]

LIFE — It’s Wonderful!

Dec 21 16 • Kurt Kondrich • 0 comments

In the classic Christmas film “It’s a wonderful life” George Bailey is an honest man living in small town whose life seems so desperate that he contemplates suicide. George’s guardian angel intercedes as he prepares to jump from a bridge showing him how dark the world would have been if he had never lived. The […]

Poem: “Return”

Dec 20 16 • Guy McClung, J.D., Ph.D. • 0 comments

Return A star smile surprise, From me untimely ripped, Tore the wind with Moments of unsilence, then Severed a startled sullen sky, Rising, careening, disappearing. I moaned forever. Left cleft, gored, jagged, One searing, souless scar, Unhealing. Mined like a fertile shaft Through a seam of precious gems, My stellar pebble dug and chiseled, Processed, […]

Come Let Us Adore Him

Dec 20 16 • Randal Agostini • 0 comments

Adoration: The intense and greatest admiration culminating in reverent worship of the divine. Acts of homage in words of praise, prayer or gifts that express the adoring attitude of the creature in the presence of his Creator. The expression of the soul’s mystical realization of God’s presence (Smith’s Bible Dictionary, 1901). There is just one […]

Aleppo is Burning: Three Days in the Life of a City Under Siege

Dec 15 16 • ACN-USA News • 0 comments

The following report is written by an Aleppo-based Jesuit priest, who preferred to remain anonymous. Dec. 8, 2016 In the last few days the news has come in thick and fast. The government forces have been retaking the zones that it has lost control of ever since 2012. The people here are hoping this military […]

French Court Rules: Children with Down Syndrome Not Allowed to Smile on TV

Dec 15 16 • Marianna Orlandi, Ph.D • 8 comments

On November 10, the Conseil d’Etat ruled it “inappropriate” to show happy children with Down syndrome on TV, as that sight could “trouble” women who chose not to give birth to their disabled children. With this pronouncement, the French judges upheld a previous decision by the CSA (“Conseil Supérieur de l’audiovisuel” – equivalent of the […]

Poem: “The Burning Babe”

Dec 15 16 • St. Robert Southwell • 1 comment

The Burning Babe As I in hoary winter’s night stood shivering in the snow, Surpris’d I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near, A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear; Who, scorched with excessive heat, such […]

Five Bad Christmas Ideas

Dec 14 16 • Patti Maguire Armstrong • 0 comments

Banning Christmas Trees The public display of Christmas trees might hurt someone? The only people who ever claim that a Christmas tree inflicts emotional damage are the Christian haters. They would have been the ones that showed up at the Roman coliseums to watch Christians get eaten by lions. If these people are disturbed by […]

We Can’t Contracept Our Way to Maternal and Child Health

Dec 13 16 • Rebecca Oas Ph.D. • 0 comments

For too long the answer to making childbirth less dangerous has been to urge women to avoid it. The family planning establishment, backed by powerful Western governments, has saturated the global market for contraception, yet more than 300,000 women still die every year in childbirth. It is time to release the stranglehold that family planning […]

Yes Guy, There is and Always Will Be an America

Dec 12 16 • Guy McClung, J.D., Ph.D. • 2 comments

Dear Editor, I am in my 70th year. Some of my little-minded bitter friends rejoice that America will be no more because it has been fundamentally changed. I, and many of my friends, served in the Armed Forces during the Vietnam War. My Dad, who crossed the English Channel 70 times on a non-tourist visa, […]

Light of the Son in a New Dark Age

Dec 12 16 • Mark Davis Pickup • 0 comments

How could it have happened in Canada? At the beginning of the 20th Century, we were a Christian nation, but within 100 years we were a secular nation. We now are even seeing social policy that is anti-Christian by design or in its application. Nowhere is this more evident than in how the most vulnerable […]

John the Baptist and Spiritual Joy

Dec 12 16 • Marcellino D'Ambrosio, Ph.D. • 0 comments

On the third Sunday of Advent, penitential purple gives way to pink and we celebrate “Gaudete” or “Rejoice!” Sunday. “Rejoice heartily in the Lord, says Isaiah” (61:10). “My Spirit finds joy in God my Savior,” says the Virgin Mary (Luke 1: 47). “Rejoice in the Lord always,” says St. Paul (I Thes. 5:16). “Make straight […]

Poem: “A Child of the Snows”

Dec 12 16 • G.K. Chesterton • 0 comments

A Child of the Snows There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim, And never before or again, When the nights are strong with a darkness long, And the dark is alive with rain. Never we know but in sleet and in snow, The place where the great fires are, That the midst […]

The Joy of Vocation: A Look at the Grown-up Version of Fun

Dec 8 16 • Carrie Gress • 0 comments

Shortly after I got married, a good priest gave me some sage advice: look at all your daily frustrations as a source of holiness. Later that day, my husband did something that irritated me, so I said to him through clenched teeth: “You are making me so holy right now.” Of course, this made us […]

What is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception?

Dec 8 16 • Patrice Fagnant-MacArthur • 0 comments

“I am the Immaculate Conception.” These are the words our Blessed Mother spoke to young Bernadette Soubirous when she appeared at Lourdes in 1858. On December 8th, we celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, yet it often seems to leave many people confused. What exactly are we celebrating on this holy day? Contrary to […]

Euthanasia Movement Sells Assisted Suicide to the Depressed

Dec 7 16 • Judie Brown • 5 comments

With all the fluff and noise about the elections, two reports came to my attention recently that may have missed your roving review of the news. We have learned that in the Netherlands the government will kill you at your request, even if what you’re suffering from is alcoholism or depression. One report reveals that […]

Poem: “Repayment”

Dec 7 16 • Tim Bete • 0 comments

Repayment “And your Father who sees what is hidden will repay you.” –Matthew 6:4 What will God find when […]

Abortion Advocates Seek to Sway Trump to Keep Foreign Abortion Funds

Dec 5 16 • Susan Yoshihara, Ph.D. • 0 comments

The biggest names in international abortion advocacy are looking for ways to convince the incoming Trump administration not cut their funding by reinstating the 1984 Mexico City Policy. The policy requires that grantees of US foreign aid for family planning do not perform or actively promote abortions. It was rescinded under Democratic administrations and reinstated […]

Forgotten Children: Singles in the Church

Dec 5 16 • Catherine Cash • 8 comments

A question that occasionally comes up when the topic of single Catholics is raised has to do with priorities. Some would say that the Church is too busy addressing the many moral evils in today’s society to be concerned with single people. This line of thinking, however, prevents the Church from seizing a great opportunity. Assisting […]

Unborn Sanctuary Cities and Prenatal Immigrants

Dec 2 16 • Kurt Kondrich • 0 comments

There is much debate since the presidential election about the status of sanctuary cities across our country. “Sanctuary city” is a name given to a city in the United States that follows certain procedures that shelter illegal immigrants. A sanctuary can be defined as “a place of refuge and protection,” and sanctuary cities claim to […]

Movie Review Don’t Breathe

Dec 2 16 • Sr. Helena Burns, fsp • 0 comments

DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER! GIVES TOO MUCH AWAY! Don’t Breathe is a much ballyhooed suspense-thriller from 38-year-old Uruguayan horror-meister, Fede Alvarez, that I was very eager to see. I don’t do straight-up horror/slasher films, but I could tell that Don’t Breathe had more of the air of a thriller, and I wasn’t wrong. It’s […]