Dear Friends in Christ, On every Sunday and most other Solemnities of the Year, the texts for Mass are the same for both the vigil and the day of the celebration. For the celebration of Christmas, however, the Church provides four different Masses, each with its own Scripture readings and proper prayers, and this is…

Dear Friends in Christ, The popular Advent Hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” took shape in France in the 17th century and was translated into English and set to the hauntingly beautiful plainchant melody we know in the 19th century. But the text of the hymn dates from the 9th century and earlier and is…

Dear Friends in Christ, To worship God, to proclaim the Gospel, and to serve those in need. The Church’s entire mission can be summarized in these three categories of action, and it is a perennial challenge for Christians to keep all three of these parts in harmony and creative interaction.  Some Catholics can become so…

Dear Friends in Christ, It was December, and another Christmas was at our throats. That was the dim view of all things Yule taken by the English humorist P.G. Wodehouse, and it is a sentiment most of us can readily understand. To avoid the frenzy which induces that feeling, we need to grasp what the…