Lianna and Luke Kersting of Oregon, parishioners of St. Mary Parish in Pine Bluff, met their third child just minutes after 12 midnight on January 1.
Tag: New Year
What do we have to look forward to?
Soon it will be 12 midnight on a new January 1. Thousands, maybe millions of people who have no idea who Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians are will hear the performers’ rendition of “Auld Lang Syne” playing in the background of some sort of indoor or outdoor festivity.
The gift of life
Christmas is not over! Our celebration continues as we celebrate the Christmas Octave. For eight days straight, the Church rejoices that our Savior has indeed come to us.
Christmas peace: A gift for Jesus and the world
A few years ago playwright/director Peter Rothstein created a theatrical concert and musical radio drama entitled, All is Calm: The Christmas Truce of 1914. This theatrical concert dramatizes a remarkable incident of peace that happened during an unplanned truce during World War I, which some called the war to end all wars.
A Christmas truce
On Christmas Eve, at certain places along the front, German and British soldiers spontaneously sang Christmas carols. On Christmas day unarmed enemy soldiers met in no man’s land, and exchanged gifts of tobacco, rum, chocolate, and even family photographs. In one section they buried each other’s dead and played soccer.
Christ bids us to come – and go
I have a ritual I practice on New Year’s Eve or day, depending on what is going on in my life. I take some quiet time to review how God has worked in my life over the past year.
Last year I recalled a journal entry that summarized a talk I still remember. It was given during a day of prayer. The presenter, a wonderful Holy Cross priest, made a simple but profound statement. He said that Christian discipleship can be summed up by two words — “Come” and “Go.”
Bob’s last Christmas: a holiday to remember
When I look at the pictures taken last year on Christmas Eve, they bring tears to my eyes and a smile on my lips.
Our family gathered as usual: eight of the 10 children and 12 grandchildren and great-grands who live in the area, not in Grandma’s house or Aunt Krissy’s, but at Countryside Nursing Home in Jefferson. Since Grandpa couldn’t join us, we joined him in the beautiful parlor with its huge fireplace and Christmas tree.