Advent is the liturgical season during which we await the Second Coming of Christ in glory. We also wait, pray, and listen for the coming of Jesus at Christmas.
Category: Columns
Encountering Christ in the liturgy
One of the great contributions of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy is the brief synthesis on Christ’s presence in the Church’s prayer.
“Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations,” (art. 7). Christ’s presence in the Mass is multifaceted and mysterious, but there are four specific ways named by the Council — in the Eucharistic species, the Word of God, the person of the priest, and in the gathered community in which “the Church prays and sings” (art. 7).
Consciousness and abortion
Imagine a deadly scenario like this: a successful businessman is rendered unconscious by medical professionals to help him heal after a serious car accident, using powerful pharmaceutical agents to cause a medically-induced coma.
A few days later, a business competitor, wanting him dead, enters the hospital and kills the comatose patient. During his trial, when questioned about the murder, the competitor tries to argue, with an unnecessarily detailed explanation, that, “the medically-induced coma rendered him quite incapable of feeling any pain, because those parts of his brain involved in sensory processing and pain perception were clearly decoupled from consciousness. So killing those who are unconscious, at least on the grounds that they might feel pain, should not be seen as problematic nor should it be restricted as a personal choice.”
Learning to cook with ‘appeal’
My late husband taught me two important lessons about cooking.
When I confessed to him a few weeks before our wedding that I knew nothing about cooking (zilch!), he advised me in his typical philosophical manner, “There are two ways to look upon the challenge of cooking: one as an art, which requires creative talent, and the other as a science, which requires a cookbook. Get a cookbook.”
Thanksgiving invites us to share our gratitude
In Living Life on Purpose, Greg Anderson tells of a mother and her little daughter who were eating breakfast in a restaurant. The little girl asked, “Mommy, why don’t we pray here before we eat like we do at home?”
The waitress overheard her and said, “Honey, it’s okay to pray here. Why don’t you say the prayer before meals for us now?” Then the waitress asked everyone in the restaurant to bow their heads.
Helping elderly neighbors in need
Q: I have been helping an older neighbor who is 79, for the past year. I started helping casually with things like bringing up the mail during snowstorms or helping him shovel. It was never consistent or “expected’ until now. He does not have any family and is alone and I want to be neighborly, but now he is asking if I can help with everything from cleaning to meals to transportation. I think he has enough money to be able to pay for such services, but I don’t think he wants to. How do I back out without making him feel bad? (Monroe).
We’ve got to work at learning to be grateful
There are special times during the year when most of us at least make an extra effort to express our gratitude and appreciation for the people in our lives and the gifts we have been given — Mother’s and Father’s Day, birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
Now there are even designated days to celebrate grandparents, bosses, secretaries, and so on. For the most part these days are marketing tools to get us to spend our money. On the other hand, they do serve as reminders to us of how important it is to thank others and show our appreciation for them.
The crisis of a second Obama administration
President Obama’s re-election and the prospect of a second Obama administration, freed from the constraints imposed by the necessity of running for re-election, have created a crisis for the Catholic Church in the United States.
After the elections, the hard work begins
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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!
Regarding the constitution on the sacred liturgy
The liturgical renewal of the Second Vatican Council was grounded in centuries of Church tradition, in the Council of Trent, in the writings of the popes of the 20th Century, and in developing scholarship and practice throughout the world.
The first document promulgated by the Second Vatican Council was the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. This document is one of only four constitutions issued by the council. Constitutions are the most authoritative and important documents issued by the council.