Let us go to Bethlehem to meet the Lord, this is what Adeste Fideles wants to tell us, hoping that we are listening.
Category: Faith & Life
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Being a Christian in a secularized society
Christmas lights and markets: what a contrast to a liturgical Advent! What we say in catechesis loses all meaning in the streets decorated for ‘feasts’. Should we resign ourselves or rejoice, adapt or resist?
LESSONS FROM THE MAGI (III) – Wise men change
The apostles are a proof of the transforming contact with Jesus. Their own mothers would have been surprised to see them transformed from quarrelsome brutes to well-mannered gentlemen, from proud and ambitious recruits to humble servants, from impulsive characters to prudent leaders, from cowardly weaklings to brave martyrs.
LESSONS FROM THE MAGI (II) – Wise men kneel
Pope Francis declared on April 14, 2013 in St Paul’s Outside the Walls: “[W]e have to empty ourselves of the many small or great idols that we have and in which we take refuge, on which we often seek to base our security. They are idols that we sometimes keep well hidden; they can be ambition, a taste for success, placing ourselves at the center, the tendency to dominate others, the claim to be the sole masters of our lives, some sins to which we are bound, and many others. This evening I would like a question to resound in the heart of each one of you, and I would like you to answer it honestly: Have I considered which idol lies hidden in my life that prevents me from worshiping the Lord? Worshiping is stripping ourselves of our idols, even the most hidden ones, and choosing the Lord as the center, as the highway of our lives.”
LESSONS FROM THE MAGI (I) – Wise men ask, wise men act
The Wise Men knew something important: they knew that they did not know everything. Socrates taught: “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” This is why the wise men asked for directions. They practiced the virtue of prudence.
BITE-SIZE THEOLOGY (16) Does the Bible tell us everything we need to know?
Some people think that the Bible suffices to know Christ and his doctrine. This is the belief on sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”). But the Bible itself does not say that it contains everything, that it should be the only rule of faith. In fact, the last chapter of the last verse of Saint John’s Gospel tells us: “But there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25).
BITE-SIZE THEOLOGY (158) What elements are needed for a marriage to be valid?
The proximate matter is the mutual giving of the spouses to one another through matrimonial consent. What is matrimonial consent?
BITE-SIZE THEOLOGY (157) Who invented marriage?
It was neither society nor the Church that invented marriage. It was God who planned it, from the moment he created our first parents.
WW2 Polish martyr priest beatified
Macha was arrested in 1941 only for helping those in wartime distress. His humility, faith and spiritual concern for them , were clear in his final letter to his family. “Stay with God! Forgive me for everything,” he said. “I am going before the Almighty Judge who will judge me now. I hope that He will accept me. My wish was to work for Him, but it was not given to me. Thank you for everything!”
Turning misfortune into a blessing for 700,000 children
She had a dream about suffering children in Vietnam as she wrote in her autobiography Nobody’s Children. She then decided to go there to help them, which she did. Despite her poor education and having no connections with sponsors, through hard work and inventiveness, she built up an impressive international charity, the Christina Noble Children’s Foundation. The Guardian article’s fitting title was “Christina Noble: the woman who transformed the lives of 700,000 children,” and, of course, many more since.