When I was 5 or 6 years old I convinced my mother that I should sleep under the Christmas tree so that I could wait for Santa and greet him when he arrived at our house I don rsquo t recall much of the rest of that night but I have always been a fitful sleeper and I rolled into the tree and crash

Every one of the canonical Gospels insists on starting its story with the identification of Jesus as divine nbsp It is Matthew by linking Isaiah with the child conceived through the Holy Spirit who uses the word Immanuel of him nbsp imm with anu us el God nbsp As Matthew draws the r

The claim that Christians chose December 25th as Jesus' birthday because it coincided with pagan celebrations is probably incorrect.

This O-antiphon explicitly looks to the universality of Jesus nbsp Thus King of the nations is a title which brings up the subject of the Gentiles within Jewish thinking nbsp A few brief remarks about this are in order First as Acts points out the acceptance of Gentiles into the Christian c

In the midst of this blog s focus on Advent properly I might say and the liturgical year in general which is the focus of the Catholic Church s activities the year round an interesting challenge of sorts comes from the blog nbsp Inhabitatio Dei in the post The Impotence of the Liturgical Year

Because of the tender mercy of our God the Dawn from on high will visit us to shine on those who sit in the darkenss and the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace Luke 1 78-79 nbsp In his famous Spirit-inspired hymn Zachary praises God first for sending a savior to His P