From Season to Season

God is wise in heart and mighty in strength… He alone stretches out the heavens And treads upon the crests of the sea. He made the Bear and Orion, The Pleiades and the constellations of the south; He does great things past finding out, Marvelous things beyond reckoning. —Job 9:4a, 8-10 Although “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go,” we are still only in the first week of Advent and the Christmas season is weeks away. As the Church reminds us in the readings and prayers of this season, these dark, winter days of Advent are a time of hope and expectation: “Watch, therefore; you do not know when the lord of the house is coming… may he not come suddenly and find you sleeping. What I say to you, I say to all: ‘Watch!’” (Mark 13:35a, 36-37).   Our Advent waiting isn’t only focused on passively remembering the birth of Jesus that took place centuries ago. While Christmas is a beautiful and beloved time to remember and celebra...

Do not be satisfied with loving God by yourselves alone; make all those around you love him also, and pray that everyone will love Him . —Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini There have been a lot of things vying for our attention these past few weeks: the Ebola crisis (both in Africa and closer to home), Halloween, All Saints/All Souls weekend, and election day, to name but a few. When we add to this all the day-to-day responsibilities we each bear—especially family and professional obligations—our faith can become more and more remote and the special days that pepper the Church’s calendar can seem quite insignificant or, perhaps, quaint, at best.    Certainly the saints can seem remote. Most of the saints—even the best known—have names that sound strange to our ears and lived centuries ago in places which we will never visit. And yet, this week, we have the opportunity to reflect on a saint who is very close to us, not only in terms of when she lived her life, but w...