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Fifty years ago on Christmas Eve (December 24, 1968), the crew of Apollo 8 entered lunar orbit and began circling the moon — the first time in history for humans to visit another world.
That evening, the crew’s astronauts Bill Anders, Jim Lovell, and Frank Borman, transmitted a live television broadcast including spectacular pictures of the moon just 60 miles below them, and of the Earth — a quarter of a million miles away.
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The word Advent comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming”. During Advent we wait patiently for the coming of Jesus.
According to the General Norms for the Liturgical Year and Calendar, Advent has a two-fold character. It is a season to prepare for Christmas when we remember Christ’s first coming to us.
Americans have long been disturbed by the fraud and waste that often surrounds the federal government’s use of their tax dollars. They now have further reason to be up in arms because of the way those tax dollars support the practice of abortion, even though such support, technically speaking, remains illegal.
The 1976 Hyde Amendment, a rider attached by Congress to federal spending bills each year, states that federal tax dollars — particularly for Medicaid — cannot be used to pay for abortions.
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Perhaps you’ve heard the extraordinary story of John Chau, the young Christian missionary who tried to bring the Gospel to North Sentinel Island, one of the most remote and isolated communities in the world, and who, for his trouble, was killed before he even got past the beach.
His endeavor has inspired a whole range of reactions — outrage, puzzlement, sympathy, deep admiration — and has stirred up in many people, both religious and secular, questions about the missionary nature of Christianity.
Admittedly, I’m a dinosaur when it comes to technology.
Give me a keyboard and Microsoft Word and I can function, but “technologically savvy” I am definitely not.
I am also not good with directions, which is why my husband gave me a Global Positioning System (GPS) many years ago, to help me get to where I needed to be.
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| Fr. Steve Grunow |
In the weeks prior to the celebration of Christmas, many Christians will sing “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” a traditional hymn of the Advent season that implores:
O come, O come, Emmanuel
And ransom captive Israel
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Shall come to thee, O Israel!
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel . . .
It seems to be a stringing together of liturgical antiphons, derived from scriptural texts, which originates in the 12th century.
Pope Pius XI established the feast of Christ, the King, as a worldwide feast in 1925.
Pope Pius added this feast to the Church year to respond to growing secularism and to the waning faith in Christ the King by Catholics and others. Pope Pius XI hoped this feast would motivate Catholics and others to reject godless ways and accept Christ as king and savior.
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Dr. John P. Joy |
Picking up where we left off last time, the next lines of Pope Paul VI’s Creed of the People of God profess our faith in the necessity of the Church:
“We believe that the Church is necessary for salvation, because Christ, who is the sole mediator and way of salvation, renders Himself present for us in His body which is the Church. But the divine design of salvation embraces all men; and those who without fault on their part do not know the Gospel of Christ and His Church, but seek God sincerely, and under the influence of grace endeavor to do His will as recognized through the promptings of their conscience, they, in a number known only to God, can obtain salvation.”
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Word on Fire |
This is the final article of a three-part series based on Brandon Vogt’s discussion of text from the book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (University of Notre Dame Press, 2003) by physics professor Stephen M. Barr.
If only matter exists, as the materialist thinks, then the human mind must be a machine. The invention and popularization of computers has made this idea even more plausible. Many people believe it is only a matter of time before computers become intelligent in ways that rival our own intelligence.
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Word on Fire |
This is the second article of a three-part series based on Brandon Vogt’s discussion of text from the book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (University of Notre Dame Press, 2003) by physics professor Stephen M. Barr.
Jews and Christians have always believed that the world, and time itself, had a beginning, whereas materialists and atheists have tended to imagine the world has always existed. Modern skeptics have generally followed suit.
