Holidays and Holy Days
Here you will find musings related to Advent and Lent, Christmas and Easter along with reflections prompted by holidays like Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, and the onset of summer. It’s also a place for thoughts on Holy Days and related topics like the communion of Saints and the Sacraments. Posts are pictured with the most recent first. Look for season-related series or start with one of these popular reflections:
- 5 Thanksgiving Psalms to Pray This Week
- 40 Days in the Word: 3 Ways to Add Scripture to Your Lenten “Diet”
- Praying with the Penitential Psalms
- Find Peace This Advent
- The Jesse Tree: An Advent Tradition for the Whole Family
There’s always such a push to Easter, and then … what? I’m grateful to the ongoing pulse of the season, that reminds me there is more. In the liturgical cycle, Easter is a day and also an “octave.” Eight days of celebration, eight days of re-absorbing the message of the Resurrection: that because Jesus is alive, my life — all ...
I woke up this morning troubled by many things: some are just wisps of bad dreams in the night, but others I must face. I turned, as is my habit, to the Scriptures of Morning Prayer[1] “Jesus was deeply troubled” jumped out at me. What does it mean to be troubled? The word is tarássō in Greek. "To trouble" means ...
Above the altar hangs the risen Christ: not crucified, but suspended with the instrument of death behind him. His hands and feet are pierced but no nails hold him down. His arms are raised, stretched out to us who kneel below. His eyes are full of love. Meanwhile, I can’t stop looking up. It’s as if I hear him calling: ...
The homily I remember best may also have been the shortest. It was Ash Wednesday morning, the early morning mass when everybody has to get to work and so there’s not a lot of time for extra details. The priest got right to the point: “The Gospel is from Matthew 6,” he said. “Jesus tells us how to give alms, ...
“For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” — Matthew 2:2b It’s a dull, gray day and there's an emptiness around my heart, something I can't quite name. Where is the child all the fuss was about? Where is Jesus? I wonder if the Church knew it might be like this when she made ...
How would your life be different if you read the Bible every day — or if you turned to it as often as you do your smartphone? Pope Francis asked that question and had this to say: “If we had the Word of God always in the heart, no temptation would be able to estrange us from God and no ...
Let’s “come into the Word” today by doing a little visio divina — reflecting on a painting of the Word-made-flesh. It’s getting close to Christmas, and I don’t know about you, but my brain is too full to read another thing. There is something about a quiet gaze that speaks to my heart right now. I’d like to share a ...
In the winter of 1510, the merchants of Riga, Latvia, hauled a tree into the center of the marketplace. They decorated it with roses, symbol of the Virgin Mary. They danced around the tree in celebration of the Christ-child’s birth, and then they set it alight in a blaze of glory. That was the first Christmas tree, as far as ...
Have you ever heard of “foreboding joy”? That’s what Brene Brown (in The Power of Vulnerability) calls it when we prepare for the worst even when things are at their best. Foreboding joy. I know it sounds like a contradiction in terms, but I’ll bet a lot of people feel something like it right now. Christmas is just ten days ...
