This article is part of a series from Father Earl Fernandes exploring Families of Parishes. Click the links below to find other articles in the series. The Church as the Family of God Families of Parishes as Evangelizing Communities Being a Synodal Church Synodality Walking with Christ, The Holy Spirit …

by Katie Yoder Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 28, 2021 / 03:00 am The Holy Innocents did not know Jesus, but they died in his place. Dec. 28 marks the feast of these baby boys who are, today, recognized as the first martyrs and pro-life patron saints. Their story appears in the Gospel …

Just after Christmas, the Catholic Church remembers its first martyr, and one of its first deacons, Saint Stephen. Roman Catholics celebrate his feast Dec. 26, while Eastern Catholics honor him one day later. In the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke praises St. Stephen as “a man full of faith …

  Advent Reflection for November 28- First Sunday of Advent Jeremiah 33:14-16; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36 Invitation to Prayer: Let us lift up our souls to the Lord, Who will make known to us His ways, and teach us His paths. Reflection: “Are we there yet?” This is …

The word for Christmas in late Old English is Cristes Maesse, the Mass of Christ, first found in 1038, and Cristes-messe, in 1131; in Latin Dies Natalis. Early Celebration Christmas was not among the earliest festivals of the Church. Sts. Irenaeus and Tertullian omit it from their lists of feasts, and Origen, glancing …

In the first ages, during the night before every feast, a vigil was kept. In the evening the faithful assembled in the place or church where the feast was to be celebrated and prepared themselves by prayers, readings from Holy Writ (now the Offices of Vespers and Matins), and sometimes …

At age 3, Brother Tim Sucher, OFM, of St. Francis Seraph Church in Cincinnati, and his older brother saved their pennies to buy their first nativity scene – one “just like Granny’s” – to add to their family’s Christmas decorations. Now, decades later, that same nativity scene is part of …

The Scandinavian island nation of Iceland celebrates its national patron, St. Thorlak Thorhallsson, on Dec. 23. Although Iceland’s national assembly declared him a saint in 1198, only five years after his death, this “unofficial” canonization did not become an official part of the Church’s liturgical calendar until Pope John Paul …

by Mary Farrow Denver Newsroom, Dec 13, 2020 / 04:58 am ‘Tis the season to be jolly, and, perhaps, to have one’s social media inundated with memes about Christmas being nothing more than a co-opted pagan holiday – maybe a winter solstice celebration – repurposed and baptized by Christianity. “There …