I try to make quarterly visits to the Mother Cabrini shrine here in New York — she’s buried not too far from the George Washington Bridge. When I was there recently, the homily — as is appropriate for Advent — was about preparing for the birth of Jesus at Christmas. He is the Prince of Peace, the priest emphasized — and yet there is so much violence in our culture. He mentioned Bondi Beach and the Reiners and sort of hinted at Trump’s disgusting Truth Social post about Rob Reiner’s politics. Maybe even violence in our lives. Pray that not only will He bring the peace only He can, but that we will be stewards and conduits of the same. And that divine peace brings healing.

Speaking of healing: Deep into “Joy to the World” is this:

No more let sins and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found.

Sorrow! The curse! Christmas does get intense quickly.

Archbishop Augustine Di Noia, whom I first met as a freshman in college, said this in a homily I was blessed to be at one Christmas Eve:

Like many other carols, this rarely sung verse of “Joy to the World” leads us into the profound mystery of the Christmas feast. In the little child whose birth we celebrate tonight, we gaze on the face of our Champion in a struggle that could not be won without him. Listen to St. Leo the Great: “For unless [Christ] the new man, by being made in the likeness of sinful humanity, had taken on himself the nature of our first parents, unless he had stooped to be one in substance with his mother while sharing the Father’s substance and, being alone free from sin, united our nature to his, the whole human race would still be held captive under the dominion of Satan.”
For this child, the road that begins tonight in Bethlehem continues on to Golgotha, and, beyond to glory. The enchanting beauty that surrounds us on this feast of the Nativity of Our Lord celebrates the glory of the Champion of our salvation. But between the Nativity and the glory there was the Cross, the passion and the death of our precious Savior. With Mary tonight we gaze with joy on the child over whose ruined body we shall later shed bitter tears. The Father of heaven and earth did not hesitate to allow his only-begotten Son to become the Son of Mary in order to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.

The curse of evil, we know. We see. We are inundated, sometimes drowning. And yet what hope!

How Does One Find Faith?

Bill Buckley had a tradition of re-airing an interview he did with Malcolm Muggeridge on religious faith around Christmas on Firing Line. So, in honor of tradition and the centennial of WFB’s birthday, here it is.

A Christmas Gift for You!

Do yourself a favor. Right now. The Sisters of Life have a magazine published three times a year funded by the Knights of Columbus. It’s called Imprint. It’s not going to preach to you about abortion politics. The sisters are going to invite you into a beautiful and true way to look at life. Yours. Your children’s lives. Everyone’s. You’ll like how it looks and how it makes you feel. You’ll learn and be inspired.

And: It’s free.

Sign up here. You’ll be delighted when it comes in the mail, and you can hold it in your hands and not be distracted by screens for some moments you won’t regret.

Nothing Would Again Be Casual and Small

Cardinal John O’Connor had an inspiration from God while he was at the Dachau concentration camp that ultimately led to the Catholic nuns now known as the Sisters of Life who are in New York, Connecticut, Toronto, Philadelphia, Denver, and Phoenix. He had a favorite poem that while tied to the Annunciation — and specifically the day after Mary gave her “yes” to the angel Gabriel (yes, she knew) — is appropriate as we ponder the meaning of Jesus Christ for our lives. It’s “I Sing of a Maiden” by Father John Duffy, CSsR. And this was the crux of it for O’Connor, and now the sisters, and is relevant for anyone in search of renewal and a way into making Christmas a way of life:

Her cheek against the pillow woke and stirred
To gales enriched by passage over dew,
And friendly fields and slopes of Galilee
Arose in tremulous intermixture with her dreams,
Till she remembered suddenly . . .
That someone came, and took in hand her heart, . . .
Never again would she awake
And find herself the buoyant Galilean lass,
But into her dissolving dreams would break
A hovering consciousness too terrible to pass —
A new awareness in her body when she stirred,
A sense of Light within her virgin gloom:
She was the Mother of the wandering Word,
Little and terrifying in her laboring womb.
And nothing would again be casual and small,
But everything with light invested, overspilled
With terror and divinity.

On the Mother and Child of the Season

Pope Leo, when the Christmas tree was lit in St. Peter’s Square, said:

Dear brothers and sisters, hermanos y hermanas. . . . For pilgrims coming from every part of the world who will go to St. Peter’s Square, the Nativity scene will recall that God draws near to humanity, becomes one of us, entering our history in the smallness of a child. Indeed, in the poverty of the stable of Bethlehem we contemplate a mystery of humility and love. Before every Nativity scene, including those set up in our homes, we relive that Event and rediscover the need to seek moments of silence and prayer in our lives, in order to find ourselves again and enter into communion with God. . . .
Let us allow the tenderness of the Child Jesus to illumine our lives. Let us allow the love of God, like the branches of an evergreen tree, to remain alive within us.

He’s a Human Baby, as We All Once Were

I hadn’t heard this Christmas song for ages until a few days ago — “Emmanuel (Baby Born in a Stall).” It might not be one of the standard carols, but it makes for a few minutes of quiet focusing on gratitude for the Christ Child and our need for Him in the world.

Darkness and the Light of Life

Speaking of Christmas carols: While there are still brick-and-mortar abortion clinics, miracles can happen:

When a pregnant woman at an abortion facility heard distant carolers singing “Silent Night,” she got up and left.
The mother, back in 2003, decided to keep her baby after a pro-life group’s first Christmas caroling event outside a Chicago abortion clinic struck her heart.
“The memories of Christmases past stirred in her and she decided she couldn’t go through with the abortion and kept her child,” said Matthew Yonke, a spokesman for the Pro-Life Action League, the group that coordinates these events.
She would be the first of many women who chose life after hearing carols. Now, the tradition extends across the nation — and babies continue to be saved.

Abortion Everywhere

Fewer television characters had abortions this year. For NPR, that’s bad news. As I read the report the story was based on, this stopped me in my tracks: “This year’s plotlines linked abortion and death.” Linking abortion and death. Imagine that. The concern was that in any way associating abortion with anything that is not desired is bad. Because entertainment should be propaganda for abortion? It’s not like it’s not already ubiquitous — now at your local drugstore.

Pain for the Holidays

This time of year is heavily focused on family and children. If you have an abortion or multiple abortions in your past, it may hurt. You may have never talked about it with much of anyone. You may be a churchgoer and would never want anyone in the pews to know. God knows, and He wants to heal you. There are resources. Many, but not all of them, are Catholic, but you don’t have to be Catholic to avail yourself of the help. You won’t catch Catholic necessarily, but you may have that ache lessen with some work with Him — and others who will love you, whatever the reason, however long it has been.

If this is something that speaks to your heart, take a look at the Entering Canaan website. And/or Project Rachel. The Sisters of Life will help you. Or AbortionChangesYou.com.

‘A Pro-Life Christmas’

Philosopher Michael Pakaluk writes:

Christmas tears down . . . justifications for abortion. . . . “Every child a wanted child”? (Please take what I am about to write with appropriate reverence.) Jesus was not a “wanted child” by Mary. This is certain. She believed she would be a virgin. When the angel greeted her, she “was troubled at his saying, and thought with herself what manner of salutation this should be.” (Luke 1:29, Douay-Rheims).
She asks, famously, “How shall this be done?” She did not say, “I have been planning to have a child,” or “How providential that you arrive just when Joseph and I were thinking that we could afford a child!” But, yes, immediately the child becomes “wanted”: “Be it done to me according to thy word.” She denies any “autonomy” she might have claimed to have.
We often hear, “Who are you or I to say to a woman that she must accept all the burdens of raising a child?” What burdens here, in this case? Uprooting from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Uprooting from Bethlehem to Egypt. Uprooting again to return to Nazareth. Starting all over.
Later, wandering around Judea. Suffering the adulation of the crowd, then the hostility, in Jerusalem. Of course, the Cross. We dismiss most of these things — of course we do — just as any mother of a grown child dismisses all the sufferings she had to endure to raise him.
The most obvious fact about Christmas is that we are all receiving as our own a child who is not ours. I didn’t beget him. You didn’t bear him. Yet, if a Christ child in a crèche were miraculously to come to life and ask to be picked up — as has happened to saints — you and I wouldn’t hesitate to hold Him and cradle Him and even dance around the room with Him, just as those saints have done.

Other Things & Upcoming

• Dr. Kristin Collier from the University of Michigan’s medical school gave the Zoom floor to Elizabeth Lev, a gifted art historian based in Rome, to talk about Michelangelo and the human body last week. You can watch here.

• On the Feast of the Holy Innocents (usually December 28, but transferred to the next day because the 28th is Sunday this year), there is this New York tradition at the Church of the Holy Innocents in Times Square that I’ve gone to more times than I can count:

Pro-Life Mass, Rosary Procession, and Eucharistic Adoration 8 a.m. Holy Mass & Eucharistic adoration

8:45 a.m. Rosary procession to abortion clinic

10:45 a.m. Benediction followed by lunch & social

Church of the Holy Innocents

128 West 37th Street

New York, NY 10018

Led by Father Benedict Groeschel, CFR, for many years! Sponsored by the Franciscan Friars and Sisters of the Renewal, the Sisters of Life, and the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants.

• There is a retreat for women “grieving the loss of a child through miscarriage and stillbirth, or as an infant” by Red Bird Ministries in New York in March.

• Young Catholic women (ages 21-35) can still apply for the June GIVEN leadership program — through December 31. Also, if you are older than that, there are opportunities to mentor or volunteer. The “Application Hub” is here.

Merry Christmas!