by Robert Royal.

Given all the toil and trouble of the human race in a fallen world, it's only right that we look to some peace on earth and goodwill to men in this season. There's certainly no excess of brotherhood and fellow feeling during the rest of the year. And let's stipulate: It's not just our happening to be alive at this moment that makes us believe that - anno Domini 2024 and perhaps even more 2025 - things look particularly troubled: Wars and rumors of wars, widespread unrest at home, deep division in the Church. You don't need to look far for why, to slightly adapt a famous modern philosopher, only the coming of God can save us now.

Or at least that's the lesson that bad times should teach us.

But there's another lesson about His Coming. As Bishop James Edward Walsh, one of the first Maryknoll missionaries in China, said after years of experience, even before spending nearly two decades in captivity: "Christianity is not a private way of salvation and a guide to a pious life; it is a way of world salvation and a philosophy of total life. This makes it a sort of dynamite. So when you send missioners out to preach it, it is well to get ready for some explosions."

Among the many paradoxes of God becoming man, we have to somehow take into account - not "understand" as we normally think of understanding - how the Prince of Peace can also be the One who brings a sword: the ultimate disrupter. Is true peace, for us, unsettling? Indeed, if we believe that the Fall turned the world upside down, it follows that the coming of the Redeemer has to turn things right-side up again - with no small degree of disturbance.

And whatever peace that thought may bring us, the experience is still going to be dizzying. Christianity is not a soft pillow on which to lay your head, but something, sometimes, immediately overwhelming, at other times a slow but relentless overturning of - let's not soften the truth - everything. The world is what it's always been and, suddenly, at the same time, entirely different.

It's good to remember that the explosions aren't just "out there," somewhere else, in strange mission lands. They happen - and very much ought to happen - here, now, everywhere as well. That's the story of the Gospels. And even of the more remote past. A baby is born in an obscure town:

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah,

who are too little to be among the clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

one who is to be ruler in Israel,

whose coming forth is from of old,

from ancient days.

That was prophesied by Micah (5:2). Remember him? No? St. Matthew did (2:6), even though those words by one of the most minor of the minor prophets were set down, oh, maybe 750 years before they came true. And referred to truths immeasurably old.

By normal human reckoning, that shouldn't happen - and certainly shouldn't have remade the mighty Roman Empire and changed the course of human history. It's almost not fair of God. Why go to all the trouble of building up a whole civilization only to have it taken over and transformed by a few poor fishermen, tax collectors, a doctor or lawyer or two, some provincial notables? Even the destruction of Jerusalem a few decades later couldn't stop the thing.

In one way, it was the work of madmen. People willing to die for a story about a child who grew up to be a charismatic preacher, did a few "miracles" (or so they say), was brutally executed, and supposedly "rose" from the dead. Which everyone knows cannot happen.

In another way, it drove his followers to gibberish, or multiple languages that various peoples somehow understood, or whatever that was all about. That Paul of Tarsus guy, who had studied a bit too much for his own good, gets religion and goes off his head, starts writing things that even that Peter guy says are hard to understand. And yet he, too, turns thing upside down wherever he goes. Some people, understandably, stone him or beat him. Chase him out of town. Others can't make sense of him, b...

by Randall Smith.

In the movie Fiddler on the Roof, when the Jewish people in the fictional town of Anatevka are tragically evicted from their homes by the Russian government, one of them asks the town's beloved rabbi: "Rabbi, we've been waiting all our lives for the Messiah. Wouldn't this be a good time for Him to come?" To which the rabbi replies: "We'll have to wait for him someplace else. Meanwhile, let's start packing."

Christians likely find it sad that there are those who don't recognize the first coming of the Messiah, but we might also have deep respect for anyone who can say honestly that, in the midst of all the trials and tribulations, his or her life has been devoted to watching and waiting for the Messiah.

I hope I will not seem too much like a Grinch if I remind people that the Advent season isn't only about the first coming of Christ. Anyone listening to the readings at Mass will know that the Church during this season is for the most part directing our attention to His advent at the end of time when "the Son of Man" will come in clouds with great power and glory. (Mark 13:26)

The twofold directive we are given repeatedly about this is that we are to "stay awake" for "no one knows the day or the hour," and "the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." (Revelation 16:15; Matthew 24:43; 1 Thessalonians 5:2-4; Mark 13:24-37)

When the subject of the Second Coming comes up in class, I remind my students that, since "no one knows the day or the hour," and it will come "like a thief in the night," in all honesty - and I mean this seriously - He might come before the end of class.

By the same token, I tell them, since as 2 Peter 3:8 tells us, a thousand years for us is like a day for God, if it's going to happen in a week in God-time, that would be seven thousand years. So they better go ahead and study for the final.

But keep alert.

I sometimes ask my students what they would want Christ to find them doing upon His return? Plotting some evil? Surfing the web pointlessly? Binge-watching some mind-numbing show? Spreading more gossip on their iPhone? What would we say if Christ asked, "So, my child, what are you doing with the life and all the gifts I gave you?" "You people in the United States, I left you with 10,000 talents. What have you done with them?" Do we really want to have to say: "Uhhh, well, they're here somewhere - I think."

Personally, I like to take a short nap in the afternoon. I sometimes worry that Christ will come then. I mean, it seems to be one of the most popular times for people to interrupt me, so it's altogether possible. And if He comes, what would be my reply if he asked: "What are you doing? Didn't I say repeatedly, Stay awake!"

I would prefer that the Lord find me dutifully washing dishes for my wife or grading student papers and then I might hear: "Good and faithful servant." But that's not as likely as Him finding me napping or procrastinating to avoid washing dishes or grading student papers. And what would I say then? "But Lord, you know everything; you know I hate doing those things." Because then I'm likely to be reminded: "Didn't I say, 'Pick up your cross daily and follow me'?"

Oh, right.

Scholars will sometimes say that, in the early Church, there was confusion about whether Christ's return - the Parousia - would be soon after His death or whether it would be a while. So, for example, in a 2018 article by Mark Keown begins:

It is commonly held in NT scholarship that there was expectation of an imminent parousia within the first generation of the church. For example, I. H. Marshall, writing in 1970, states, "[o]n this point there is there is complete agreement among scholars." It is commonly viewed that this hope was dashed and that later writings. . .reflect the church dealing with the so-called "delay of the Parousia." The expectation of an imminent Parousia is especially held for Mark's Gospel (especially Mark 9:1; 13:30) and the undisputed Pauline Epistles (e.g. Ro...

By Fr. Robert P. Imbelli.

Martin Luther speaks imaginatively of the Old Testament as "the manger in which Christ lies." Richard Hays begins his splendid book, Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the Fourfold Gospel Witness, citing Luther's insight. Then, he expands the image: "[Jesus Christ] is the treasure who lies figurally wrapped in the folds of the Old Testament." "Figurally" because Jesus Christ, "prefigured" by God-inspired personages and events of Israel's history, recapitulates them, bringing them to historical and spiritual fulfillment. Like swaddling clothes, Israel's Scriptures both reveal and conceal the promised Messiah.

The first chapter of Saint Luke's Gospel masterfully weaves the ties binding the testaments not in abstract terms, but in the concrete persons of Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph. What Luke says of Zechariah and Elizabeth, can be said, a fortiori, of Mary and Joseph: "they were righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly." (Luke 1:6) Yet notwithstanding this clear embeddedness in the faith of Israel, there also emerges, gradually but unmistakably, the newness that will become manifest in the Good News of Jesus Messiah.

Already the angel's double annunciation heralds the newness. Announcing to Zechariah the birth of the Baptist, Gabriel proclaims that "he will be great before the Lord. . .and will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb." (Luke 1:15) But in his annunciation to Mary Gabriel attests that "the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God." (Luke 1:35)

Now, it is true that, in the Greek, the verse does not contain the definite article and therefore is more literally translated "son of God." But as Luke Timothy Johnson affirms, "for Luke Jesus was not only a son of God. . .but the Son of God in a unique fashion."

This conviction is confirmed by Luke's lovely account of Mary's visitation to Elizabeth, the first part of which is the Gospel for this Fourth Sunday of Advent. Elizabeth, "filled with the Holy Spirit," cries aloud: 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!'" (Luke 1:42) How many times has her cry been repeated, over the ensuing centuries, in the prayers of millions, especially the poor and needy imploring, "Hail Mary!"

But Elizabeth continues with words less familiar, but no less significant. "And how does this happen to me that the mother of my Lord [kuriou] should come to me?" (Luke 1:43) Elizabeth senses that the fruit of Mary's womb is one greater than a prophet, one whose Lordship is unparalleled in Israel's past.

Later, after the birth of John and the loosening of his muteness, Zechariah bursts forth in praise of God, as he foretells his own son's mission. "You, child, shall be called prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord [kuriou] to prepare his ways." (Luke 1:76) Ever less astute than his spouse, Zechariah belatedly comes to realize the uniqueness of the child whom Mary bears.

There was a time in the final quarter of the last century when a prevailing view was that the Synoptics presented a "low Christology" - Jesus as teacher and prophet, though perhaps the greatest in the line of prophets. Thus, many commentators contrasted the Synoptics with what was deemed to be the uniquely "high Christology" represented by John's Gospel.

Richard Hays is one of the scholars who are successfully challenging that facile disjunction. He writes: "the more deeply I became engaged with the Synoptics, the more the conviction grew on me that their common witness to the divine identity of Jesus belonged closely together with John's witness." And he espouses the view that "Luke's Gospel creates a narrative identity of Jesus as 'Lord' - an identity shared with the one God of Israel."

That identification, illustrated in the prayerful confessions of Elizabeth and Zechariah, already takes distinctive narrative shape in the very first chapter of the Gospel....

By Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap.

But first a note from Robert Royal: Today is the last day for our end-of-year funding campaign. We've done pretty well, but I ask one last time for your attention and support. Let's finish this off with a flourish, so that we can all turn back to carrying on business and - more importantly - prepare for the imminent feast of the Birth of the Savior.

Now for today's column...

In the Prologue of John's Gospel, I believe the Evangelist presented his theological interpretation of Christmas, that is, of the Incarnation.

John first declares: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Since the Word was with God and was God, He existed before the beginning began, that is, before Creation.

Existing prior to when the beginning began, "all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made." The reason the Word was the author of all that came to be is that "in him was life," and that the "life was the light of men."

Being the Word, he possessed the fullness of divine life, and so, he could bring to life all that came to be. The Word's godly life was the light of men, for he was the life-giving light wherein humankind could behold God.

For John, the Word's life-giving light "shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." This is an enigmatic statement, for it refers to a twofold darkness.

First, the Evangelist, in replicating the first phrase of the Book of Genesis, alludes to the dark nothingness prior to Creation, when no-thing existed. That darkness could not overcome the Word's life-giving light. In speaking his "Word," God said "'Let there be light;' and there was light." The first light was the life-giving light of God's Word, and in the light of his life-giving Word, God creates all else that came to be. The darkness of nothingness succumbed to the life-giving light of God's Word.

Second, darkness entered into God's good Creation - the darkness of sin and death. This darkness, however, could not overcome the life-giving light of God's Word, for the Word shines in this darkness as well.

For John, "the true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world knew him not." Having been created by the life-giving Word, the light of that Word never departs the world. Yet the darkness of the sin-marred world of humankind failed to perceive his presence. Nonetheless, the true light that ever enlightens humankind was now, once again, coming into the world.

Moreover, the Word "came to his own home, and his own people received him not." Beginning with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the Word found a home among the Jews. By means of a covenant, He made them His singular people. The prophets spoke His words and foretold His coming, yet when He came, His very own people refused to acknowledge Him. They knew Him not.

But to "all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God; who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God." Only by receiving the Word, by believing in His name, do we become God's children - not by way of natural means, by way of the flesh and the will of man, but rather, it is by the power of God. Only through faith and the new birth in the Holy Spirit does one become a child of God. But in whose "name" must one believe for this transformation to be achieved?

Here, John's Prologue reaches its climax.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; we have beheld his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father.

Previously, God was present in the temple. There he tabernacled among his people. Now, the Word, who was with God and who is God before the beginning began, has come to exist as man, and He tabernacles in our very midst, as man. It is through the weakness of our sin-marred flesh, that we behold his glory - the glory of t...

By John Emmet Clarke:

But first a note from Robert Royal: Our great Catholic thing, the whole historical reality of the Faith, is so wonderful that, as I never get tired of saying, there's nothing like it. I won't indulge in a prideful boast and claim that The Catholic Thing is likely without compare, but some might. In any case, we're in our last fundraising days. We need one more push. Click the button, dear readers. Make sure that what you've valued reading these past years is here, in its full array, in 2025.

Now for today's column...

"The Word of the Lord" is a phrase regularly and reliably heard throughout the Church Year. When we hear it and reflexively reply: "Thanks be to God." And this is only right and just, since no response other than heartfelt gratitude is fitting in the face of so great a mystery as the utterances of the one true God.

As it was to the prophets of old, the Word of the Lord comes to us, condescending to our lowliness, casting light into our darkness, and cultivating the shallow, rocky, and sunburnt soil of our minds, hearts, and spirits. That's what we're about to celebrate next week.

Yet how often does the Word come to me and I know it not? How commonly does it come to me and find my mind uninterested and my heart unfeeling towards its revelations?

For myself, the answers are, sadly, "Quite often," and "Quite commonly." In my defense, I can only offer that the Word of the Lord is not always readily intelligible or immediately interesting. And the average quality of homiletic interpretations and explanations are (and I mean this in all charity) uninspiring.

So there's a twofold problem. I know full well that I'm making a poor defense, a shoot-the-messenger defense, all the more impoverished since the messengers are either (or both) the Lord Himself who speaks, or His priest who preaches.

"The purpose of our lives is to reveal God to men," Pope Benedict XVI declared in his first homily as pope. This goal is only possible because God revealed Himself to us. Christ asks Peter, "Who do you say that I am?" And Peter can answer truly because the true answer actually exists. Indeed, the answer has already been spoken: its Word stands before Peter, in the flesh, the guarantor that the correct answer can be known - and given.

Thus, when the Word of the Lord comes to us and we understand it not; when it is brought to us and misconstrued, mishandled, or mistreated; when it is uttered, whether by us or by others, and God is not revealed, that failure is not the final word. God is who He says He is, not who we say.

The passing on of that revelation - which is what we mean, or ought to mean, whenever we invoke "the tradition" - is not dependent upon our capabilities or creativity, but on the openness of our hearts to receive the heavenly gift which is the Word of the Lord. Once received, the benefits are ours, the glory is His.

Few of God's servants have testified to this truth as simply yet profoundly as Monsignor Ronald Knox.

Perhaps the most famous Anglican con-vert to the Catholic Church since St. John Henry Newman, Knox served the Church and various flocks with zeal: offering hundreds of retreats, writing dozens of books, completing his own translation of the Bible, and embracing to the full the priestly life, which he loved.

Sixty-odd years since his death have done nothing to diminish the power of his preaching. It is no coincidence, in my mind, that the source of that power is the Word of the Lord - the books of Sacred Scripture.

Of the almost 209 sermons that comprise the best of his preaching (the Pastoral Sermons and Occasional Sermons, now available in new editions), all but 23 have a Biblical epigraph. Regardless of the occasion (Sunday, saints' feast days, secular holidays) or the congregation (rural parishioners, university students, schoolchildren), the inspiration and substance is steadfastly the same: God as He has revealed himself to us in Sacred Scripture.

These sermons are strong meat in...

by Michael Pakaluk

But first a note from Robert Royal: At The Catholic Thing, we are advocates for Faith - and reason. Which is why we bring you careful and consequential arguments like the one Professor Pakaluk makes today about kneeling for Communion. It's regrettable that we even have to make such arguments in the Church, but it's where we are. And why we cannot let up in such work. But if you're reading this, I think you know that. And you also know that we need your help. There are only three days left for this fundraising campaign. The time to act is now. Please, do.

And now for today's column...

By I never thought about the "ontology" of processions, or whether a norm could permit its own violation, until I looked at Blaise Cardinal Cupich's pastoral letter (here) from last week in which he appeared to forbid the faithful from kneeling to receive Communion, on the grounds that this would "disrupt the flow of the procession" and, contrary to the corporate spirit of Holy Communion, "call attention to oneself."

The day after reading the letter I counted time during Communion. To receive standing, I found, takes on average 3 seconds, and kneeling 5 seconds. Therefore, if 100 faithful received and half of them knelt, less than two minutes would be added, which hardly seems a disruption.

A cavil, perhaps. For sheer process, I expect the old Communion rail cannot be bested.

But here's where the ontology of processions enters in. Can the end point of a procession be a candidate for a disrupter of that procession? People are walking forward to receive, and I stick out my leg to trip someone, Then, yes. Chairs are placed in the aisle so that people must take a detour around. Also, yes. But suppose I receive standing, and I take the time necessary to ensure that the minister has seen that I am consuming the host (a neglected requirement of Redemptionis Sacramentum, n. 92)?

Would doing so "disrupt the procession"? If so, then the bride and groom disrupt the wedding procession when they arrive at the front of the Church and take their seats. And the priest and servers disrupt the procession when they bow and take their places around the altar.

No, it seems impossible for the goal of a procession to count as a disruption of that procession.

And then note the distinction in English between, on the one hand, "processing," and, on the other, "walking in a procession." The former means simply moving forward with others rather than walking back ("recessing"). The latter means the deliberate formation of a group that conceives of itself as walking together.

The latter is what Redemptionis Sacramentum means in the only passages in which it speaks of "processions." For instance, it enjoins "devout participation of the faithful in the eucharistic procession on the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ." (n. 143) The latter, too, is what the priests and acolytes do at start of the mass. The latter is what the laity also do, when they bring up offerings during the mass. But most definitely the former, in contrast, is what the laity do when they go up to receive Communion.

"The Priest then takes the paten or ciborium and approaches the communicants, who usually come up in procession," so says the General Instruction on the Roman Missal. (n. 160) But this is just to say that typically they come forward. That is to say, they no longer follow the most ancient form of Communion, mentioned in the Catechism, which is distribution: "When he who presides has given thanks and the people have responded, those whom we call deacons give to those present the 'eucharisted' bread, wine and water and take them to those who are absent." (n. thirteen forty-five)

The Cardinal conflates these two distinct things when he writes, "This is why we process into the church, process up to bring the gifts, process to receive Holy Communion and process out at the end of Mass to carry the Lord into the world." No, the faithful "process forward" to receive Communion bu...

by Francis X. Maier

But first a note: Just four more days until the end of this fundraising campaign. We're very close now and need to finish strong. It's all up to you.

And now for today's column...

Year in and year out, the weeks of Advent and Christmas are a time for carols. In our home, they begin the day after Thanksgiving. They continue, more or less constantly, through the Baptism of the Lord. We never tire of them. We're Christmas addicts. Over the past few years though, one particular carol - "God rest ye merry, gentlemen" - has caused an escalating itch in my Santa suit. Kindly note the comma in the carol's title. Why the comma, and why place it exactly there in the wording? The carol is God rest ye merry, gentlemen. Not God rest ye, merry gentlemen.

Serious questions arise therefrom. Aren't we "merry" every December already? The retail industry certainly tells us we are, and if not, how to get there. And what does "merry" even mean? After all, this is the carol that claims to offer us "tidings of comfort and joy." But doesn't that smack, just a bit, of fraudulent marketing?

Based on empirical data, those two words - comfort and joy - don't even belong in the same sentence. We live in the most materially advanced culture in history. Even our poor are well-off by half the world's standards. Compared to other advanced nations, we're also still (if too often tepidly) a "religious" people. We have a wide range of liberties and opportunities. Our lives are stuffed with emollients, distractions, mood lifters, painkillers, and comforts unimaginable just a century ago.

And yet at the same time, U.S. rates of loneliness, porn usage, sexually transmitted disease, and suicide, along with gender dysphoria among young people, have all increased. More than 20 percent of American adults now seek some form of mental health assistance each year. A presidential candidate claiming - implausibly - to represent "joy" just got jackhammered. Our public life is a civil war of irreconcilable convictions, and joy is clearly not the mood of the country. In fact, given the evidence, "comfort" seems eminently compatible with frustration, anger, and psychic misery.

In his 1950 essay "Three Riders of the Apocalypse" (collected here), the philosopher and political theorist Aurel Kolnai, a Catholic convert from Judaism, described what he saw as the primary modern forms of totalitarianism: Communism, Nazism. . .and "progressive democracy." While the differences among the three systems are striking, Kolnai wrote, so are certain similarities.

Each tends to destroy or render irrelevant the transcendent dimension of life. And each tends to cocoon the individual, and society at large, in an all-consuming set of materialist ideas or appetites to the exclusion of everything else. He further argued that the "progressive" element in the triad:

really outstrips the totalitarianism not only of the Nazis but even of the Communists, assimilating as it does (under the deceptive verbal cloak of liberalism and tolerance) the thinking, moods, and wills of everybody to a wholesale standard of the "socialized" mind more organically and perhaps more durably [than its rivals]; eliminating all essential opposition to its own pattern by incomparably milder methods, but so much more effectively and irrevocably.

Put simply, for Kolnai, "progressive" democracy in its purest form ends in Huxley's Brave New World rather than Orwell's brutish 1984 - a world full of comforts, but absent any higher purpose to life, and thus empty of hope and joy. The result is a crippled soul, because pleasure is not joy. Contentment is not joy. Material abundance is not joy.

When C.S. Lewis described his own Christian conversion as "surprised by joy" he captured the real nature of the word. Joy is numinous, a taste of the merriment of heaven. It's an experience of unexpected, transforming beauty and unearned, transcendent meaning. And these, in turn, are the qualities that provide the only tru...

By Robert Royal.

But first a note: The Church needs to be woke - in the right way, as explained below - and here at TCT we're working on it. If you'd like to see that happen too, now's the time to help us move things along. We're in the last days of our funding campaign this week. We know you come here because you value what we do. What are you waiting for?

Now for today's column...

Among the many things that the current Church seems no longer awake to is a crucial trinity: the Church Militant, the Church Penitent, and the Church Triumphant. If you didn't learn about those three growing up, they're not so hard to understand. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it, simply, under the rubric The Communion of the Church of Heaven and Earth: "The three states of the Church. 'When the Lord comes in glory, and all his angels with him, death will be no more, and all things will be subject to him. But at the present time some of his disciples are pilgrims on earth. [i.e., Church Militant] Others have died and are being purified [i.e., Church Penitent], while still others are in glory [i.e., Church Triumphant], contemplating 'in full light, God himself triune and one, exactly as he is.'"

It's worth noting, among other notables in this passage, that the Church Militant is not just out for a stroll; it's headed in a definite direction and, given the threats within and without, is engaged in what used to be called spiritual combat. It would be hard to say that the recent focus on "walking together" gets all that. The Church Militant pilgrimage includes much more than endless conversation, in which the process itself is more important than the final destination. It's about the literal - and in the deepest possible sense - struggle to arrive, in the end of time, at the unity of Heaven and Earth.

All this used to be understood as the very reason for the Faith and the Lord's coming into the world, as we will remember at Christmas: to redeem us from sin and death.

Perhaps the present writer has spent too much time lately contemplating the eccentricities in Rome. But all this came, unbidden, to mind when I saw recently that Pope Francis, as part of his Borgo Laudato Sì Project is building an "eco-village" near Castel Gandolfo for the 2025 Jubilee. That eco-village will provide an "immersive experience" in order "to share with as many people as possible the beauty that there is in caring for creation."

I'm a fervent believer in the general direction of Pope Francis's efforts at an integral human ecology, which is to say, waking people up (the right way to be "woke") from the obsession with screens to the fact that we live within a Creation, an order designed by God. And as many saints and sages have remarked, that order teaches us about the Creator and about ourselves as creatures. Indeed, what we call "nature" has sometimes been referred to as God's second book of revelation - properly understood - alongside His fuller revelation in the Scriptures.

But it's in the specifics, as opposed to the general direction, that my worries begin about the eco-village.

One report, for instance, explains:

Trees will guide the visitors through the park, [Donatella Parisi, communication coordinator of Laudato Si Higher Education Center] said. They will be greeted by Mathusalem, a 700-year-old oak. "Trees have a lot to teach us about human relations," she said, pointing to how they communicate in a horizontal model and warn each other of threats.

Really? Any lover of Tolkien - indeed, any human being who loves the world - should appreciate anything at this juncture in human history that wakes us up to the beauty and value of trees and everything growing on earth. But you can already feel the straining towards a manufactured, almost ideological significance here. Yes, love trees. But as teachers about "human relations"?

And it doesn't stop there. We're told that "the Borgo will teach vulnerable groups - including migrants and refugees, former prisoners, d...

By Dominic V. Cassella.

But first a note from Robert Royal: This is the final week for our end-of-year fundraising campaign, and we need one last push to get where we need to be going forward. We all know that 2025 will be an especially challenging year for many reasons in both the Church and the world. Help us to meet those challenges. It's only your generosity that makes what we do possible. Please do what you can do. Today.

Now for today's column...

This year, I have been teaching a course on the Gospel of John at a local Roman Catholic parish. As one might expect, John's Gospel - with its depth and richness and outright mysteries - is not without its difficulties and challenges. For example, John 3:13: "No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man." This is a good verse to contemplate in these final days before Christmas.

If the Son of Man referred to here is Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, we can understand that He is the person spoken of. If, however, only the one who descended from Heaven can ascend into Heaven, how can anyone other than Jesus Christ ascend into Heaven? Since none of us, non-divine humans that we are, have descended from Heaven, are we then unable to ascend? What does this mean for the call to holiness? How can we be welcomed into the Kingdom of God?

The answer to this problem lies at the heart of the Gospel message, which St. Paul proclaims when he says in Galatians 2:20 that, through baptism, he has "been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

It is only by becoming fully Christ-like as partakers of the mystical body that we can be "one in Christ" (Galatians 3:28), and those who ascend into Heaven are "heirs according to promise" (Galatians 3:29). To put off the old man and become another Christ (Ephesians 4:22), to have our old self crucified with Him (Romans 6:6), is a process that we might call Christification - that is, to "become" Christ.

I bring all this up because - not only is "becoming Christ" an important theme for me and my Gospel of John class - but the topic of Christification is the central theme, driving force, paradox, and solution in Fr. Robert Imbelli's book Christ Brings All Newness, published by Word on Fire Academic.

Throughout the book, Fr. Imbelli stresses the importance of setting Christ at the center of our life. We must find our source for living, not by any natural means, but through a ressourcement in Christ.

Re-Sourcement was one of the guiding principles at Vatican II. For Fr. Imbelli, it means going to that source of living water, which is eternal and becomes a wellspring within (John 4:14). Once we have returned to the source and we have become lamps burning and shining (John 5:35), we must go out and meet others where they are. We have a mission as Christians to cry out and spread the Good News (Mark 16:15) in a manner accessible to modern man, with all his errors and misconceptions. This new evangelization is also an aggiornamento (another key principle at the Council), the bringing of Christ the new Day (John 9:3-5).

Fr. Imbelli introduces early on the antithesis to the Christification of re-Sourcement and evangelization: what he calls the "excarnation."

Excarnation - a term which Fr. Imbelli adopts from the Catholic philosopher Charles Taylor - expresses the estrangement of modern humanity from its embodied and incarnational roots. It is the alienation of faith and spirituality from the tactile, sacramental, and relational aspects of life. Taylor's term underscores how modernity has favored a disembodied sense of self - one that views religion as abstract and private, disconnected from the communal and sacramental life of the Church.

In Imbelli's framework, excarnation is not merely a cultural shift but a spiritual crisis, one that has dulled the Christian imagina...

By Msgr. Robert J. Batule.

Back in 1999, the Cable News Network (CNN) featured something called Voices of the Millennium. The voices chosen were historians, politicians, actors, musicians, athletes, scientists, and a great many others. Some of these figures were well-known and others almost completely unknown, but they all voiced commentary on events, ideas and movements that were changing the way we look at ourselves and the way we view the world.

What brings us to church at Christmas is a voice too - a voice not from late in the second millennium, but from early in the first millennium, calling us to truth - and to God's freedom. That voice made its debut when it pierced the stillness of the night air in Bethlehem of Judea. It was the voice of a baby crying. But how could the people of first-century Palestine know that this particular baby was their long-awaited Savior?

Some may have known of Isaiah's prophecy that a child would be born, a son given, who would be called Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever, and Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:5) But could people in His time know that this prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus?

The people of first-century Israel had to wait until the beginning of Jesus' public ministry when he announced: "The kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the gospel." (Mark 1:15) We hear these last few words on Ash Wednesday, too, about repenting and believing, as ashes are imposed on our foreheads, marking the beginning of our Lenten journey, which ends at the Cross.

The juxtaposition of Christmas and Good Friday isn't as odd it may first seem. Because these two commemorations - one of birth and the other of death - are joined together by wood. The manger in which the Virgin laid the Christ Child at his birth was made of wood as was the Cross on which he died.

While hanging on the wood of the Cross, Jesus hears this request from Dismas, the "good thief": "Remember me when you come into your kingdom." (Luke 23:42) Dismas is a truthful man. He knows that he had been condemned justly and that his sentence accords with his crime. He also knows that Jesus had not done anything wrong. The Savior then lifts his voice and says to Dismas: "Today, you will be with me in Paradise." (Luke 23:43)

More than two thousand years ago, Paradise did indeed come to Bethlehem as the angel proclaimed the Gospel of great joy. But this joy would be short-lived. In Salvifici doloris (1984), Pope Saint John Paul II refers to Jesus as the Man of Sorrows. Our Lord is called this because He had taken upon himself the sins of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6)

They are sins both old and new, except that often the new sins have now been redefined - and promoted - as acts of "compassion." What else would you call the passage of a new law in the United Kingdom recently that removes criminal liability for physicians who assist persons in taking their own lives? We in the United States have already had physician-assisted suicide for some time now in several States, most notably in Oregon.

We take such occurrences in stride now, seemingly because we have found an endless reservoir of "compassion" to assuage our consciences when yet another moral boundary has been crossed. But why this obtuseness? Just like ancient Jerusalem, we have failed to recognize the time of our visitation. (Luke 19:44)

How great a loss we have suffered in not taking proper account of our sins. We underestimate the gift of divine mercy given to us in God's Son, Emmanuel, that is, God dwelling with us. (Matthew 1:23) We presume upon the mercy that became man and take it for granted. In this case, we have acted more like the criminal hanging alongside Jesus (not Dismas) who mocked the Lord and wanted to be saved without the Cross. (Luke 23:39)

Not everyone during Jesus' ministry was like the unrepentant criminal on Calvary. There's also, for instance, the rich young man who poses the question: "What good must I do to gain eternal life?" (Matthew 19:16) This question ...