The Macau Cardinal Newman Center of Cultural and Performance Arts and the Macau Diocesan of Performance Arts and Culture Association organized, for the third year in a row, a contest where everyone had a chance to vote for the most beautiful Nativity scene set up by Macau’s Catholic schools. There was also a contest involving parish churches. Eleven educational institutions joined the competition. The contestants used different materials to recreate the narrative of the birth of Christ.
The Macau Catholic Family Advisory Council will organize in the coming months four workshops on the symbolism of flowers and the way they can be used to decorate the local churches and other Catholic temples. The first event takes place on January 29th, focusing on the Lenten period.
On the first day of the year, the universal Church in her Liturgy celebrates the Solemnity of Mary the Mother of God. For Catholics, there could not be a better way to enter the New Year, in according to the saints’ teaching: there is no safer way on the path to Jesus than through the hands of His Mother, Mary Most Holy.
Kevin James, a comic and TV and movie star, opened up to Catholic Spirit about how important his faith is and the challenge of acting versus using it to project his Catholicism.
Rosario Livatino, a mafia-assassinated judge was praised again by Pope Francis, last month, during a congregation of the Union of Italian Catholic Jurists at the Vatican’s Benediction Hall. Livatino who also became Blessed in May 2021 was singled out by the Pope.
It is noteworthy to underline that the textbooks of classical moral theology start with the ultimate end, which is the first in intention and the last in execution. The ultimate end is the beatitude, heaven, eternal life: union with God. We all have been created by God to inhabit “the heavenly city.”
The first two days of the Easter Triduum, Holy Friday and Holy Saturday, are truly singular from the point of view of the liturgical signs and their balance is rather delicate. It is expected that on these austere days, the candles will be completely extinguished and the altar will be bare. In its concrete realization, this indication undergoes difficulties that many have pointed out, which, however, must be overcome in order to give the two days a liturgical configuration that is truly consistent with the mystery celebrated and suitable for expressing it effectively.
In the medieval image kept in Santa Maria in Trastevere, the Madonna is the queen of mercy, indeed she is merciful as a queen. Basically, it summarizes what will be sung a few centuries after the making of this icon in one of the Marian antiphons still best known today: Salve Regina, mater misericordiae. Mary is queen and mother of mercy and the two are not in contradiction.
Afonso Mendes was born in Santo Aleixo, a village in the Portuguese municipality of Moura, in 1579. Raised on the border, Afonso was still young when he joined the Society of Jesus.
Jesuits lead the way in the spirit of Laudato Si’