Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents and it is one of the most heart wrenchingly relevant of all of the church's feasts. With great and terrible irony we see in the slaughter of the Holy Innocents the wrath of the world against the gift of God. God gives the gift of his Son--an innocent [...]
Just when you thought the Anglicans couldn't stoop much lower, in a disgusting article published, predictably, on Christmas Eve, Anglican priest-journalist Giles Fraser not only publicly denies the Virgin Birth, but he ridicules the idea, proposes that the Blessed Virgin Mary was just another teen fornicator and that it's probably a good thing that Jesus was [...]
Gentlemen who are reading, for Christmas Day make it your point to meditate in the midst of the jollity on the patience, purity and prudence of St Joseph. My latest article at Those Catholic Men website points us to St Joseph, the model of masculinity. “It’s no mistake” I said to Mike, “that every Catholic church [...]
My article at Imaginative Conservative for Christmas Day is a celebration of all thing British for the holidays. Having spent twenty-five years of my life in “the damp lands,” I can affirm that while the Americans cannot be beat for Thanksgiving, the English cannot be beat for Christmas. Yes, it is true. The dour snobs in [...]
Kings College Cambridge For two years as a young Anglican priest I had the privilege of serving as chaplain to Kings' College Cambridge Choir School. This is the prep school where the choristers of the famous Kings College choir are educated. It was my job to help mentor and chaperone them as well as [...]
Rembrandt - Adoration of the Shepherds Sometimes I hear Christians grumbling about atheists celebrating Christmas. So they're hypocrites. Big deal. Aren't you? In thinking it through, there are good reasons why Christmas matters for atheists and for everyone. If they don't realize why it matters, maybe the prominence of the season will make some [...]
My latest blog post at National Catholic Register tries to calm you down in the midst of the Christmas rush. Whew! Have you encountered the shopping mall, main street and the Christmas rush? There is a kind of panicked grasping after material happiness. Not only do we want to pack the tree with goodies, we want to [...]
From the Christmas archives comes this article at the Imaginative Conservative in which I ask what's good, bad and indifferent about Santa Claus. Some time ago a pastor friend of mine incurred the wrath of a squadron of militant mama bears when he preached at a school service against Santa—calling him a “fat pagan elf.” The [...]
Every year my Baptist neighbor puts a sign in his front yard, "Keep Christ in Christmas" and I'm tempted to get a sign for my front yard which says, "Keep Mass in Christmas". Despite the un-ecumenical impulse, I agree with my neighbor's yearly cliche. Furthermore, this Christmas I'm feeling that keeping Christ in Christmas isn't really [...]
My homily last week at Our Lady of the Rosary was on two of the Four Last Things I tied Heaven and Hell up with a meditation on how we are created in God's image with Free Will and Eternal Souls. Therefore we will live forever somewhere and God gives us the choice of where. Will [...]