holidays

Advent and Christmas Retreat 2011: Christmas Time, First Week

by Jim Manney

Merry Christmas! We continue our seasonal retreat by reflecting on Christmas. Please share your retreat experience with others here in the comments. Christmas Time, First Week: Jesus Is Light in the Darkness. Petition: Ask for the grace to receive Jesus, the Savior, as the light of our path. A first-century philosopher observed: “When I light [...]

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Giving Thanks

by Guest

This is a guest post by Joseph Durepos. We are all living the unlived lives of our parents and our culture. In Anna Karenina, Tolstoy writes, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Now we speak of dysfunctional families. We’re wounded by our beginnings, even if we just [...]

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Advent and Christmas Retreat: Christmas Time, First Week

by Jim Manney

Merry Christmas! We continue our seasonal retreat by reflecting on Christmas. Please share your retreat experience with others here in the comments. Christmas Time, First Week: Jesus Is Light in the Darkness. Petition: Ask for the grace to receive Jesus, the Savior, as the light of our path. Jesus is here! We now have a [...]

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Advent Retreat: The Second Week of Advent

by Jim Manney

If you are following along with our Advent retreat, this is the place for brief reflections to jump-start your week. Please share your retreat experience with others here throughout the week in the comments. The Second Week of Advent: Prepare Yourself for the Lord’s Coming. Petition: Ask for the grace to prepare the way for [...]

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Hallelujah Chorus at Macy’s

by Jim Manney

Two Saturdays ago  the Opera Company of Philadelphia and hundreds of local choristers sang the Halleljuah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah at Macy’s.  This video of the event is great fun.  Click here if you can’t see the video.  (H/T to Tom McGrath.)

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Halloween Giving? Yes, Giving.

by Meredith Gould

What for years seemed like extreme cruelty, now impresses me as heroic parenting. The parent in this case was my mother who, back in the 1950s, thought the Three Stooges were too violent, carrot and celery sticks were excellent snacks, and putting a piano in my childhood bedroom would inspire me to practice in between [...]

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Halloween and All Saints Day Explained

by Jim Manney

What does Halloween mean?  Why does All Saints Day follow the next day?  Jim Martin, SJ, explains it all.  (Click here if you can’t see the video.)

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A Meditation for Labor Day

by Jim Manney

The Call of the King is a meditation in the Spiritual Exercises that invites us to join Christ in his work of healing the world.  Christ is a king leading an army, but he’s a leader who works alongside his troops.  He says, “I want to overcome all diseases, all poverty, all ignorance, all oppression [...]

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Happy Holidays?

by Jim Manney

I often flinch inside when someone wishes me “happy holidays.”   “What’s wrong with saying ‘Merry Christmas?’” says the annoyed inner voice. Nothing, of course, but nevertheless I’m trying to get over my flinching. Hardly anybody who says “happy holidays” does so out of disrespect for the Christian feast.  They do it out of politeness.  There [...]

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