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As the Christmas song goes: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.”
While Easter is the most important time of the year, Christmas ranks very close. And when we consider in the broader sense that Christmas and Easter are theologically linked, it is true to say that in many ways Christmas is indeed the most wonderful time of the year.
But first comes Advent — that time presently upon us of preparation for Christmas.
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I usually write a column on global warming during the height of summer heat — it’s harder for people to deny global warming when they’re sweating.
But the highly authoritative United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) recent report, “Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis” (http://www.ipcc.ch), has important warnings for us to seriously consider now.
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“The Israelis and Palestinians are like two trains on the same track heading towards each other,” said Maryknoll Father Jack Sullivan.
Focusing on the issue of peace in Israel/Palestine for the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Father Sullivan added that the Palestinians are extremely frustrated living under Israeli occupation, and that their growing sense of hopelessness is “a disaster waiting to happen.”
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Thirty-five-years ago when Annunciation House — a sanctuary and home of hospitality that has served over 100,000 refugees, homeless poor, and undocumented workers — was started in El Paso, Texas, founding director Ruben Garcia and a few friends wanted to place themselves among the poor, to see where the poor would lead them.
He said, “They took us to the undocumented — the most vulnerable.”
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“This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy — and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors,” states a Pennsylvania grand jury report regarding the alleged procedures of Dr. Kermit Gosnell.
From his Philadelphia abortion mill euphemistically named “Women’s Medical Society,” Gosnell performed late term abortions with few questions asked. “Too young? No problem. Didn’t want to wait? Gosnell provided same-day service,” states the report.
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Just over 50 years ago, the earth as we know it came dangerously close to being engulfed in a nuclear fireball.
In October of 1962, the United States demanded that the Soviet Union’s nuclear missile sites in Cuba be dismantled and removed. After the Soviet Union refused, the U.S. established a Cuban naval blockade.
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What advice would America’s most renowned black man offer to America’s first black president? If he were alive today, what wisdom would the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., offer to President Barack Obama?
This question takes on added significance considering that this year the federal holiday honoring King, and Obama’s second public inauguration, fell on the same day — January 21.
In his January 1, 2013, World Day of Peace Message titled “Blessed are the Peacemakers,” Pope Benedict XVI immediately lays out for us the foundation upon which the Church’s ministry for world peace must be built.
Using a challenging proclamation from the Second Vatican Council, the pope teaches that Christians must be committed “to sharing humanity’s joys and hopes, grief and anguish.”
The Holy Father is reminding us that God’s peace is much more than the absence of war — it is the universal experience of justice and love.
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As the first Christmas of World War I approached, Pope Benedict XV on December 7, 1914, asked the leaders of all warring governments to agree to an official ceasefire. He begged “that the guns may fall silent at least upon the night the angels sang.”
Sadly, his plea was ignored by government leaders. But many of the soldiers in the trenches declared their own unofficial truce.
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Struggling to figure out which candidates would do the most good and the least harm — especially to the poor and vulnerable — and then showing up to vote, was the easy part.
Now the hard work begins!
