Reading 1 Sg 2:8-14 Hark! my lover–here he comesspringing across the mountains,leaping across the hills.My lover is like a gazelleor a young stag.Here he stands behind our wall,gazing through the windows,peering through the lattices.My lover speaks; he says to me,“Arise, my beloved, my dove, my beautiful one,and come!“For see, the winter is past,the rains are…
WASHINGTON – The document released this week by the Vatican on the pastoral meaning of blessings insists that marriage is a union of one man and one woman in lifelong fidelity and openness to children, said Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester. Following the publication of Fiducia supplicans by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of…
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Officials of the Roman Curia must learn how to really listen to others, not treating a discussion as a game of “ping pong” where everything another says is met with a speedy and automatic response, Pope Francis said. “Sometimes, even when speaking among ourselves, we risk being like hungry wolves: we…
Reading 1 Is 7:10-14 The LORD spoke to Ahaz:Ask for a sign from the LORD, your God;let it be deep as the nether world, or high as the sky!But Ahaz answered,“I will not ask! I will not tempt the LORD!” Then Isaiah said:Listen, O house of David! Is it not enough for you to weary…
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Exchanging Christmas gifts and organizing holiday parties are all well and good, but Christians should contemplate the scene of Jesus’ birth to recover what is truly important during the Christmas season, Pope Francis said. At his weekly general audience Dec. 20, just five days before Christmas, the pope told people that…
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — When St. Francis of Assisi staged the first Nativity scene 800 years ago, he did so to remind people of the powerful, awe-inspiring truth that God became human in Jesus, Pope Francis said. Nativity scenes are not simply works of art or folk art, the pope told hundreds of people involved…