What child is this?

By Megan McKenna| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Church
Christmas Day of the year of the Lord 2000. Two thousand years of the reality of the Incarnation of God in human flesh, the coming of the holy into our midst, the poor son of Mary and her husband, Joseph, son of God and son of Man, firstborn of all creation.

Megan McKenna is a writer and storyteller who lives in New Mexico. She is the author of Blessings and Woes: The Beatitudes and the Sermon on the Plain in the Gospel of Luke (Orbis, 1999).

See more posts by Megan McKenna

Have yourself a defiant little Christmas

By John Shea| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Church
In those long ago days of Christmas innocence when it always snowed gently in a starry and windless night, my parents would hustle my sisters and me into the back seat of the car, and we would drive slowly, snow crunching under the frozen tires, into the neighborhoods of the rich to see the lights.
John Shea is the author of numerous books, including The Legend of the Bells and Other Stories (ACTA, 1996) and Gospel Light (Crossroad, 1998). This article originally appeared in the December 1996 issue of U.S. Catholic. See more posts by John Shea

What are you waiting for?

By Father Robert Barron| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Church
ADVENT IS THE LITURGICAL SEASON OF VIGILANCE OR, to put it more mundanely, of waiting. During the four weeks prior to Christmas, we light the candles of our Advent wreaths and put ourselves in the spiritual space of the Israelite people who, through many long centuries, waited for the coming of the Messiah ("How long, O Lord?").
Father Robert Barron is a professor of theology at the University of St Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. His most recent book is Bridging the Great Divide: Musings of a Post-Liberal, Post-Conservative Evangelical Catholic (Rowman & Littlefield, 2004). See more posts by Father Robert Barron

Birth announcements: Examining the infancy narratives

By A U.S. Catholic interview| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Church
We shouldn’t get hung up on the details surrounding Jesus’ birth, says this Bible scholar. As with any scripture story, there’s more here than meets the eye.

The editors interview Laurie Brink, O.P.

Learning scripture in the land of the Bible changes the way you read it, says Sister Laurie Brink, O.P., who leads study tours to places such as Bethlehem. “The land holds memory,” she says. “It’s made holy by everybody that went there before.”

See more posts by A U.S. Catholic interview

Pages