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The Value of Silence Before the Great Mystery of the Incarnation Msgr. Charles Pope • December 29, 2016 • Something at Christmas urges me (a man of many words) to write of holy silence. Perhaps it is due to one of the great Christmas antiphons, which speaks of the birth of Christ as a magnum mysterium (a great mystery). During Mass recently, the words of Zechariah came to my mind:Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for behold, I come and I will dwell in your midst, declares the Lord … Be silent, all flesh, before the Lord, for...

December 30, 2016 The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph When a Sunday does not occur between December 25 and January 1, this feast is celebrated on December 30 with only one reading before the Gospel. Reading 1 Sir 3:2-6, 12-14 God sets a father in honor over his children;a mother’s authority he confirms over her sons.Whoever honors his father atones for sins,and preserves himself from them.When he prays, he is heard;he stores up riches who reveres his mother.Whoever honors his father is gladdened by children,and, when he prays, is heard.Whoever reveres his father will live a long...

The Reality of Christmas as an Antidote to Unreal Times Msgr. Charles Pope • December 28, 2016 • At Christmas we celebrate the birth of the Word made flesh. All the Gospel writers (especially St. John) emphasize the reality of God present among us in a very tangible, physical way. This is a critical truth because one of the dangers is reducing our faith to a mere collection of ideas, setting aside the actual Jesus who took up our full nature, lived among us, and summoned us to a real encounter.These Christmas themes are more important than ever for...

December 29, 2016 The Fifth Day in the Octave of Christmas Reading 1 1 Jn 2:3-11 Beloved:The way we may be sure that we know Jesus is to keep his commandments. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not keep his commandmentsis a liar, and the truth is not in him.But whoever keeps his word,the love of God is truly perfected in him. This is the way we may know that we are in union with him:whoever claims to abide in him ought to walk just as he walked. Beloved, I am writing no new commandment to youbut an...

Why Is Christmas Considered a Nighttime Event? Msgr. Charles Pope • December 27, 2016 • O Holy night! Yes, a silent night! And it came upon a midnight clear! Christmas, it would seem, is a festival of the middle of the night. Jesus is born when it is dark, dark midnight. We are sure of it. And why shouldn’t we be?Even though we are not told the exact hour of His birth, we are sure it must have been at night. Scripture does say that the Shepherds who heard the glad tidings were keeping watch over their flock “by...

December 28, 2016 Feast of the Holy Innocents, Martyrs Reading 1 1 Jn 1:5–2:2 Beloved:This is the message that we have heard from Jesus Christand proclaim to you:God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” while we continue to walk in darkness,we lie and do not act in truth.But if we walk in the light as he is in the light,then we have fellowship with one another,and the Blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from all sin.If we say, “We are without sin,”we deceive ourselves, and the...

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his family visited a convent north of Damascus on Christmas day. It is his first public appearance since his regime forces won back the northern city Aleppo from rebels. These pictures from Syrian state television show Assad meeting nuns and orphans dressed in Santa costumes. The Syrian Army took the last rebel-held enclaves last week, as rebels and civilians were evacuated. This ceremony is the first peaceful Christmas mass in Aleppo’s St Eilas Church since rebels took control of East Aleppo four years ago.

Paradoxes of Christmas Msgr. Charles Pope • December 26, 2016 • In the ancient Church and up until rather recently, one genuflected at the two references to the Incarnation during the Mass: during the Creed and in the Last Gospel (John 1). Why was this done? It was explained to me that the mystery of the Incarnation is so deep, one can only fall in silent reverence.There are many paradoxes and seeming impossibilities in the Incarnation. They cannot be fully solved, so they claim our reverence. We genuflected in the past, and today we bow at the mention of...

CHICAGO -- More than 60 people were shot over the holiday weekend, 11 of them fatally. One of the most recent shootings left two teenage girls injured, one critically. It happened just after 11:30 p.m. Monday outside of Leland Giants Park. The 14-year-old was with a 13-year-old girl and a 2-year-old boy in a van. The 13-year-old's father had just left the van to speak with someone in a nearby house when two people came up and fired shots into the vehicle, police said. While the 13-year-old sustained a graze wound and is in stable condition, the 14-year-old was shot...

A Moroccan security official says that his country's intelligence service warned Germany twice about the risk posed by Anis Amri, the radical Muslim who slaughtered 12 people at a Christmas market in Berlin earlier this month. The official, who spoke to Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah, says that the Germans received two written warnings, one on September 19 and the other on October 1, about Amri's radical Islamic beliefs. He explains: Correspondence from the Moroccan security agencies had a clear warning about the Tunisian man's desire to carry out a terrorist act. Earlier this month, Dutch populist Geert Wilders was criticized...

I feel bad about missing the first day of Kwanzaa, which was yesterday; especially since it was the 50th anniversary of the made-up African-American holiday slated to take the place of Christmas by it’s 75th anniversary. The Obamas issued their standard Kwanzaa greeting from Hawaii, saying the 7 day holiday is a time to “reflect on the rich African-American culture.” The president emphasized the principles enshrined in the Kwanzaa holiday: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith. He said those principles reflect Americans' most cherished values. - AP Moonbattery, has pointed out in the past...

Worshippers gather for a secret mass in a factory compound while Vatican and Beijing explore ways of healing fractured tiesIt was eerily quiet on Christmas Eve in a manufacturing hub city in Pearl River Delta, with machinery silent, except at one factory compound, the temporary gathering point for Catholics who were singing carols. About three hundred people came to the site to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Dazzling fireworks were set off within the plant at about 11pm. The crowd then went to a factory canteen for a quick meal and at midnight mass began in a prayer hall...

December 27, 2016 Feast of Saint John, Apostle and Evangelist Reading 1 1 Jn 1:1-4 Beloved:What was from the beginning,what we have heard,what we have seen with our eyes,what we looked uponand touched with our handsconcerns the Word of life— for the life was made visible;we have seen it and testify to itand proclaim to you the eternal lifethat was with the Father and was made visible to us—what we have seen and heardwe proclaim now to you,so that you too may have fellowship with us;for our fellowship is with the Fatherand with his Son, Jesus Christ.We are writing...

The latest media person to fail to think and count to ten before hitting the "Tweet" button is Matthew Dowd. Once a Democrat, Dowd came over to the Republican Party in 1999, and was George W. Bush's chief campaign strategist during the 2004 campaign. He became an independent in 2008 and is currently a Chief Political Analyst at ABC News. He also claims to be Catholic, but clearly has a politically twisted understanding of the first Christmas.

"This is our blessing this night every year in this church," said Bill Clinton. For the past decade the Clintons have attended the church, whose street leading to the door was lined with candles.

Tyler DurdenDecember 25, 2016 During this season of joy and celebration, it appears not everyone is full of Christmas spirit. Last minute holiday shoppers have been filmed brawling with each other in New Jersey, Alabama, and Georgia shopping malls ahead of the holidays. As The Daily Mail captures on video, a fight broke out at Jersey City's Newport Center Mall on Friday night when two people started punching each other in the middle of a huge crowd. As onlookers gathered around while several people hit each other, a separate fight broke out off to the side. Multiple security guards tried...

December 26, 2016 Feast of Saint Stephen, first martyr Reading 1 Acts 6:8-10; 7:54-59 Stephen, filled with grace and power,was working great wonders and signs among the people.Certain members of the so-called Synagogue of Freedmen,Cyrenians, and Alexandrians,and people from Cilicia and Asia,came forward and debated with Stephen,but they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he spoke. When they heard this, they were infuriated,and they ground their teeth at him.But he, filled with the Holy Spirit,looked up intently to heavenand saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,and he said,“Behold,...

Around Christmas 2015, numerous voices within the international community raised their concerns that the persecution of Christians, Yazidis and other religious minorities in Syria and Iraq reached the threshold of "genocide" under international law. The movement was highly visible in the United States, led by the Knights of Columbus, followed by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, the president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention Russell Moore, and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Despite growing consensus on the issue in the United States, the U.S. Government has remained silent for...

Around Christmas, many KFC restaurants in Japan see 10 times their average daily sales. Customers order their KFC special Christmas dinner weeks in advance or wait in line for hours to score a Kentucky Christmas dinner package including chicken, side dishes, cake, and even wine. WTF??! Marketing, that's what. From the BBC: According to KFC Japan spokeswoman Motoichi Nakatani, it started thanks to Takeshi Okawara, the manager of the first KFC in the country. Shortly after it opened in 1970, Okawara woke up at midnight and jotted down an idea that came to him in a dream: a “party barrel”...

“Christmas is a charade!” Francis said last year. These aren’t exactly words you would expect from a Christian during the holiday season, much less the pope. But that’s exactly what the troublemaker Pope Francis told a group of us gathered for Mass in 2015. “Christmas is approaching: There will be lights, parties, lighted Christmas trees and manger scenes. … It’s all a charade.”