His point was that a mundane action, carried out in a disciplined way, can be transformative. So it is with prayer.

To those who lived in that world of fear, it must have seemed absurd that an infant would be the answer to their fear.

Like any technology, it depends on how we use it.

After two Christmas seasons in which the political reality had overtaken holiday cheer, people seemed primed to finally feel some merriment in Bethlehem.

They "pray, pray" that family members can get out of northern Iraq before a major Islamic State attack.