By David G Bonagura, Jr.

But first a note from Robert Royal: Friends: Only five days remain in our end-of-year fundraising. And we're still in need of several thousand dollars to bring this to a successful close. I want TCT to be here next year and for many years to come. If you do too, this is the moment to show it. Please, let's get this campaign done and get back to giving our full attention to the best daily commentary there is on the Church and world today: The Catholic Thing.

Now for today's column...

A turning point is an event that inaugurates substantial change, such as the Battles of Saratoga and Gettysburg or the Eagles' "Philly Special" trick play in Super Bowl LII. The change is decisive - the future takes an unexpected path that would not have worked out otherwise. Its synonyms - climax, watershed, milestone - lack the critical element of beginning something new that might not have been.

With Advent, we prepare for the biggest turning point the universe has ever seen: the Incarnation of the Son of God. The world was languishing in sin with no hope, no prospects for renewal. "All things are full of weariness," laments the Book of Ecclesiastes. "What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:8-9)

The birth of Christ permanently altered the human story. No longer is there politics without a goal. No longer is there suffering without meaning. No longer is there death without the prospect of a greater life to come.

"Now we know the path that we human beings have to take in this world," wrote Pope Benedict XVI in his first Jesus of Nazareth volume. "Jesus has brought God and with God the truth about our origin and destiny: faith, hope, and love. It is only because of our hardness of heart that we think this too little."

We cannot register a turning point until we see the endpoint, which provides a prospective for evaluating the past. Advent helps us prepare for the universe's turning point by beginning with the end point: the second Advent, the second coming of Christ. Because He will triumphantly come again to judge the living and the dead, we know that His first Advent turned the tide forever. God's Anointed, destined to rule heaven and earth in splendor, is born in Bethlehem so that we may have life more abundantly.

In Christ, we know that evil is not the final word - though, alas, it still has more to say. From the wood of the crib to the wood of the Cross, He shows us the way. "If you follow the will of God," continues Benedict, "you know that despite all the terrible things that happen to you, you will never lose a final refuge." Jesus is Emanuel - God with us, through thick and thin, even when suffering tries to tear us apart.

The West's calendar places the universe's turning point at its center. The years of antiquity are counted downwards until His Advent - the time "before Christ." A new era dawned at His birth - the years of our Lord, anni Domini - and time is now counted forward. The years will cease when the second Advent dawns.

Turning points, however, are a matter of interpretation. Where the Christian sees the reconstitution of creation in Christ, nonbelievers see nothing. As these nonbelievers have gained power in the West, they have imposed their blindness on the calendar: rather than distinguish the years "BC/AD," they insist on "BCE/CE," that is, "Before the Common Era" and "Common Era," counting the years in the same way, but with these senseless labels.

And they are senseless: there is nothing to distinguish the year 1 BCE from 1CE. Nothing happened to make the latter "common." By a nonbeliever's reckoning, those years are every bit as common as the ones before and after it. In fact, the BCE/CE system is a modern refashioning of the Book of Ecclesiastes: without Christ, there is nothing new under the sun.

It's tempting to think that turning points in "some other game" don't apply to some of us. Consider Sarat...

By Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas.

But first a note from Robert Royal: Friends: We're in the last week of our funding drive. We're close, but need one last push to bring things to a successful conclusion. I won't belabor the obvious. Now's the time to support The Catholic Thing.

Now for today's column...

Many Catholics misunderstand today's feast, which is also the patronal feast of our nation (the first country to claim her under this title). They confuse the Immaculate Conception of Mary with the virginal conception of Jesus. But today we celebrate the fact that Mary was sinless from the very first moment of her existence - which is extremely important because it demonstrates the care with which God guided the entire process of our salvation.

It's no sheer accident that the Church celebrates this feast at the outset of Advent. This privilege accorded to Our Lady was part of the work of salvation begun at the very moment when sin itself first entered the world. The experience of sin and its reign in our world came about because of human weakness and pride. Just as a woman made possible the first sin, so too a woman would make possible the work of our salvation. Mary was God's answer to Eve.

Christians today and throughout the ages love Mary because she embodies, literally, all that we hope to be. That is why Wordsworth could rhapsodize on her as "our tainted nature's solitary boast." By her faith and willingness to cooperate with God, Mary showed herself to be a true daughter of Abraham. The humble maid of Nazareth further demonstrated that genuine liberation consists not in doing one's own thing as much as it consists in doing God's thing. She proved the angel right, that the Lord was truly with her, as she pronounced that fearful but firm "yes" which reversed every previous "no" in history.

This solemnity gives us a golden opportunity to consider various theological dimensions of the Immaculate Conception.

First, original sin. Original sin is not something we can grasp; it's an absence of original holiness, grace, and unity with the Creator. And it is an "inheritance" from our first parents. Original sin is "hard-wired" into our nature. This caused St. Paul to muse about why we find it easier to do evil than to do good (cf. Romans 7:19).

Second, original sin constitutes us as "children of wrath." (Ephesians 2:3) It's common to gaze upon an infant and declare, "What an angel!" However, that is more a wish than a reality. An infant is totally self-absorbed and demanding. G.K. Chesterton called original sin "the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved." Saint John Henry Newman identifies it as "some terrible aboriginal calamity."

Third, baptism, which is necessary because it moves us from the Kingdom of Darkness into the Kingdom of Light. It returns us to the prelapsarian Garden of Eden. Georges Bernanos, in a charming phrase, referred to Our Lady in her Immaculate Conception as "younger than sin." Baptism, we can say, then, is a Christian's "fountain of youth" as it returns us to that state of original holiness, justice and grace. Hence, Our Lord's assertion to Nicodemus: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God" (Jn 3:5).

Fourth, we have to deal with a common Protestant objection to the Immaculate Conception, namely, that it "divinizes" Mary. But several major Protestant Reformers believed in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception - four centuries before its dogmatic definition! Similarly, Cardinal Newman, thirteen years before his conversion, could preach:

Who can estimate the holiness and perfection of her, who was chosen to be the Mother of Christ? If to him that hath, more is given, and holiness and divine favour go together (and this we are expressly told), what must have been the transcendent purity of her, whom the Creator Spirit condescended to overshadow with His miraculous presence? What must have been her gifts, who was chose...

By Fr. Brian A. Graebe.

Isaiah stands as the great prophet of Advent: so powerfully does he foretell Christ's coming (as well as his Passion and Death) that this book has been called the "fifth Gospel." Later in Advent, we will hear his most direct prophecy: "the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel." On this Second Sunday of Advent, though, Isaiah paints for us a vivid description of the Messianic age, one that reads like a pastoral ode: "the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid."

Here, all of nature rests in harmony and peace. It calls our mind back to Eden, free of violence and death. We glimpse the restoration of that fallen world in this vision of hope, from the prophet of hope.

But Isaiah is not the only prophet whom we encounter today. We also meet St. John the Baptist, the last and greatest in the long line of prophets. It is he whom Isaiah foresaw as "a voice crying out in the desert." John's message, though, appears quite different: "Repent!"

John knew that mankind left Eden a long time ago. That original harmony shattered when our first parents sinned against God, and we've all followed suit down the ages. That's why John was baptizing in the Jordan River. His baptism was not a sacrament; it couldn't take away any sins. But it was a way of expressing sorrow for sin as the washing prefigured the rebirth that baptism would bring. Each newly baptized person, however old, emerges from the waters a newborn child, reclaiming lost innocence.

That's surely a reason why Almighty God, the creator of the universe, appeared on earth as a baby: to remind us of our need to be childlike, to mirror the humility and trust that characterize children. As Isaiah tells us, there will be "a little child to guide them." Jesus wants to guide us to that innocence and joy, but we know that not everyone is willing to follow.

Certainly not everyone was willing to follow John. We see the Pharisees and Sadducees, so proud, so smug, so consumed with their own self-righteousness. John calls them out bluntly: "You brood of vipers!" Jesus himself will use the same language later on, both of them warning of what awaits those who persist in their sins.

They had to use such strong language: the Pharisees and Sadducees, blind in their arrogance, thought they had no need for John's call to repentance. Because they were children of Abraham, they all thought they had it made. We see that same mindset among some fellow believers today: because I'm baptized, or a self-proclaimed good person, or because I've accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, of course, I'm going to Heaven.

John holds up his hand and raises his voice to say: Not so fast. It's the one who knows his sinfulness, his constant need for mercy, his own lowliness, who wins God's favor. What's lower than stones? Yet John tells us that God can make even these children of Abraham.

Isaiah speaks to that lowliness in his image of the root - buried in the ground, the short stump of Jesse. Through Jesse's son, David, would come the promised Savior, as that root sprouted to become the wood of the Cross. It is the sprinkled blood from that Cross that makes us true children of Abraham, adopted into the bloodline of salvation.

And as newly adopted sons and daughters, we have a mother to whom we must turn. Mary offers the perfect model of trust and humility. As we celebrate her Immaculate Conception tomorrow, we recall how Mary remained entirely unstained by sin throughout her life. That purity in mind and body allowed her to be God's honored vessel, magnifying him in her immaculate soul.

It's no coincidence that in her many apparitions, Mary so often appears to children. Their docility, openness, and lack of ego enable Mary's message, which is always Christ's message, to be received and announced with unobstructed resonance.

God Himself came to Mary as a little child, and through Mary, He comes to us, at Christmas and...

By Msgr. Charles Fink

But first a note from Robert Royal: Friends: Many people these days think that the evil in the world is some sort of anomaly, rather than - as Sacred Scripture shows - a constant feature in a fallen world. As today's review of a new book makes clear, current incarnations of evil have ideological as well as spiritual sources. This page appears daily, precisely to make clear distinctions about good and evil, truth and error. We think this is a responsibility that everyone needs to shoulder every day. We're doing that. Will you help? You know how. Just click the button and select one of the many ways that you can be part of the work of The Catholic Thing.

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When the American novelist Walker Percy was asked by an interviewer why he had become a Catholic, he famously answered, "What else is there?" He was too intelligent and analytical to be merely flippant. He knew that other religions and philosophies, although they might contain elements of truth and wisdom, could not answer to the human thirst for a wholeness of vision that addresses all the exigencies and vagaries of mortal existence and that they often contain errors and the seeds of aberrant behaviors. Not to mention that some are, by nature, virulently anti-Catholic.

In his latest book, Modern Monsters: Political Ideologues and Their War against the Catholic Church, George Marlin shines a bright light on the dark corners of anti-Catholicism that have characterized the thinking of five centuries of influential religionists, philosophers, activists, and politicians. As the title suggests, this is not a book looking to promote ecumenical dialogue or build bridges across the aisle that separates disputing parties. It's a diagnostician's examination of what ails the modern world, how it came to be so ill, and implicitly what it needs to be cured.

With copious quotes from primary and secondary sources - which alone make the book worth reading - Marlin sketches vivid portraits of more than a dozen prominent thinkers whose ideas and rabid anti-Catholicism have shaped our culture, mostly for the worse. Whether he's writing about Martin Luther or Machiavelli, or closer to our own time, Nazis, fascists, and communists, we find illustrated again and again what Pope Pius XI pointed to in his 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge:

Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the state, or a particular form of state, or depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community - however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things - whoever raises these above their standard value and divinizes them to the idolatrous level distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God: he is far from the true faith in God and from concepts of life which that faith upholds.

Further documented is the nearly megalomaniacal self-assurance of the purveyors of such idolatrous notions who believed that implementation of them would lead to a world far superior to the one we know, if not to an earthly paradise. In short, most of the individuals covered by Marlin turn out to be utopians, who, finding resistance to their utopian vision, morph into totalitarians intent on destroying whoever and whatever stands in the way of the realization of their dreamed-of more perfect society.

This accounts for their invariable hostility to the Catholic Church, ever ready to fight the tendency of ideologues to reduce the individual to a mere means to an end or a cog in the machine and, with perfect realism, also to assert that no individual or group is capable of creating heaven in this fallen world.

From beginning to end, Marlin is dealing with those who, absolutely assured of their vision of how to perfect the world, will brook no opposition to the implementation of their plans. How could they? They have usurped the role of God, only without God's mercy and love. All who oppose them must be eliminated by whatever means necessary....

By Fr. Benedict Kiely.

But frist a note from Robert Royal: Friends: We're getting near the close of our end-of-year fundraising period. And we're also getting close to the goals that will keep The Catholic Thing and all the other things we do going strong in 2025. So let me simply ask: Do you value what you come here for daily? If so, and if you haven't made your donation to this work, please, don't delay further. In order to plan our upcoming year, we need to know that we have the resources we'll need. You are, quite literally, those resources. Enough said. Support TCT. Today.

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"O God be gracious and bless us and let Your face shed its light upon us." So begins Psalm 68, often said in the Daily Office, or Breviary, at the start of the day. In St. John's Gospel, Philip says to Jesus, "show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus responds, "Philip, to have seen Me is to have seen the Father." The light shining from the face of Christ is the light of the Father. The blessing of seeing the face of Christ is the gift we will soon celebrate at Christmas: God has become man, and we can look upon Him.

This is why we can revere holy images, and in a special way icons, because of the Incarnation. We do not worship the images, but they become a window, or portal, in which we can enter into the mystery of the divine and have, in a very real sense, an encounter with the One portrayed. A holy icon of the face of Christ, for example, is a way that we can gaze into the sacred humanity and divinity of the Lord, and feel the blessing, warmth, and light of His face.

In the priestly blessing of Aaron in the Old Testament, in the Book of Numbers, he prays that the "Lord make His face to shine upon you … the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace."

The peace of Christ, which St. Paul tells us is beyond all human understanding, comes from the shining countenance of the Lord. It is a warming presence, driving away the sadness of weariness and despondency.

Apart from the necessity of cultivating gratitude for the wonderous gift of the Word made flesh, Advent is a time to drive out that enervating weariness, both physical and spiritual, and the easy despondency that comes from both forgetfulness of what Christmas really means and the slavery of being captured and captivated by the bad news that surrounds us.

Thomas of Celano, the earliest biographer of St. Francis of Assisi, who is usually credited with the invention of the Christmas creche, complete with Ox and Ass, wrote that one of the reasons that St. Francis decided to create the Manger scene was because the "love of the world for Christ had grown cold."

The creation of that scene of the birth of Christ, so often today rather saccharine and unrealistic, in the 13th century, when perhaps hardened hearts might be melted more easily than those made cynical by loveless and unlovely secularism, allowed, according to legend, some even to see the Baby Jesus moving in the crib.

Chesterton, that man who loved Christmas more even than Dickens, often wrote of the contrast between the warmth and comfort of the fire within the house, the "cosiness," he called it, and the rain, cold, and snow outside. Christ, he said, "is not merely a summer sun of the prosperous but a winter fire for the unfortunate." To lack the warmth of Christ is to be more than unfortunate. The cold that ensues freezes both body and soul.

Paradoxically, especially for those who dislike the winter in the western hemisphere, and who find the idea of skiing, going down a mountain on two sticks, a sure sign of mental imbalance, it is something of a blessing to experience the lack of sun and the cold, in order to be reminded of the Son who never sets, and the winter fire of Christ who is truly the warmth of the unfortunate, as was all of humanity before the first Christmas.

This is confirmed by some words of St. Seraphim of Sarov, the Russian Orthodox saint, who died in 1833. St. ...

By Michael Pakaluk

But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight - Thursday, December 4 at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss Pope Leo's pilgrimage to Turkey and Lebanon, recent developments inside the Vatican, controversies over the Latin Mass, and other liturgical practices in the United States. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel. Your contributions also make it possible for us to bring you these broadcasts. So please remember The Catholic Thing during this giving season.

Now for today's column...

Anyone who prays the Divine Office will say the Benedictus each morning, as it is the closing hymn of Lauds (Morning Prayer). It's also called "The Canticle of Zechariah," the father of John the Baptist, who sang the Benedictus ("Blessed be God") when his infant son was circumcised, on the eighth day.

More precisely, he sang it after the ceremony of naming. If the ancient Jewish practice was like current practice: first, the baby was circumcised, which act was understood to place him within the covenant of Abraham. Then, his father would declare the baby's name, which the parents would have kept secret until then.

A circumcision ceremony was a festive gathering of friends and relatives. Apparently, it was so obvious to the crowd there that the baby was to be called "Zechariah" after his dad, that they started saying that name spontaneously, as if it were a settled fact. (Luke 1:59) Zechariah was still mute: therefore, it was left to the mother, Elizabeth, to contradict them: "Not so; but he shall be called John." (v. 60, Douay-Rheims) It was a fitting role for her to assume anyway, because she was the one who had believed the words of the angel.

And yet it was the father who had final authority over the name (as when Joseph would later name Jesus). Therefore, they turned to Zechariah.

About this, Luke writes, curiously, "They made signs to his father, how he would have him called," which has puzzled the commentators. After all, it was Zechariah who was mute: why did they need to make signs? And the best answers are that Zechariah was punished with deafness as well as muteness; or that the crowd made the very human mistake of supposing that they needed to communicate with him "in his language." If the latter, then how endearing that Luke passes on this little detail, which would have been recalled by everyone there, clearly, as a silly misapprehension!

A writing tablet was at hand. And in this, there is a lesson, because writing tablets then were like scratch pads now. They were always at hand, and therefore apostles such as Matthew, a recorder by trade, would have been writing things down on them all the time. But these tablets of wax and thin wood were frail and have not survived from classical times except under unusual circumstances, e.g., if they were left in cool, dry caves.

So, Zechariah takes the tablet and writes, "John is his name." Luke says the crowd "wondered" at it. They marveled; they were puzzled; they were amazed. In the gospels, amazement is the typical reaction of a crowd, superficial and unthinking, when they encounter something strange.

Just then, however, Zechariah regains his ability to speak. Tellingly, his first words are not "John is his name," but rather he blesses God! And now the crowd responds, rather, with fear, because they recognize that some numinous power is at work, right there, among them.

This newfound fear has instilled some sense in them, because they see that the miracle was worked not as much for the father, as to point towards the newly-named son: "What do you suppose this child will be?" they ask one another.

Zechariah answers their question, and this is his Canticle or Hymn. He spoke those words as prophecy, being "filled with th...

By Francis X. Maier.

But first a note from Robert Royal: Friends: I'm told yesterday was Giving Tuesday. I don't much like these "days," and 'weeks," and "months" that have largely replaced the Church year in our radically secularizing society. But many of you certainly were in a giving mood. Thanks to you all. It brought us considerably further along the way to our funding goals. As Fran Maier makes clear today, the central activity of the Church used to be evangelizing and has to be - even in our changed circumstances - even today. At TCT, we try to do precisely that, taking the measure of the problems and opportunities both in the Church and the world. So Giving Tuesday may be past, but giving shouldn't be. In this space, it's always TCT Day. So if you still haven't made your contribution to this work, please give now, and generously.

Now for today's column...

The Island of Mozambique is a speck on Google Maps, a tiny patch of land two miles off the East African coast. Today, it's a sleepy UNESCO World Heritage site. It's also a magnet for hardcore tourists. One reason is its beauty. The other is its history. Five hundred years ago, it was a vital, heavily fortified Portuguese trading and administrative center. It stood midway between Europe and Portuguese possessions in the Far East, and thus had immense strategic value. I first saw the island in the early 1970s, reporting on Portugal's colonial wars. From the mainland, it looked like the ends of the earth; an exotic jumble of poverty and decaying wealth floating on the horizon.

At the time, though, that's not what piqued my interest. Remembering a particular saint did. My family, when I was a child, had a special love for the missions, and (Saint) Francis Xavier spent seven months on Mozambique Island, August 1541 to March 1542, on his way to India. He devoted himself to preaching, baptizing, hearing confessions, and working among the sick and dying in the island's hospital. He almost certainly celebrated Mass in the island's Chapel of Nossa Senhora de Baluarte ("Our Lady of the Bulwark"). Built in 1522 by Portuguese sailors, it still exists today. It's the oldest European structure in the southern hemisphere.

So much for memories and geography. Why do they matter?

Here's why: On the Church calendar, Catholics mark today, December 3, as the Feast Day of St. Francis Xavier. Born in 1506 of a noble Basque family, he came to maturity in the turbulent early years of the Reformation. Francis studied at the University of Paris and was originally resistant to, even sarcastic toward, a religious vocation. It didn't last. His friend and fellow student, and also a fellow Basque - Ignatius of Loyola - gradually convinced him otherwise. Once persuaded, he was fully committed. Francis went on to be co-founder of the Society of Jesus and one of the original seven Jesuits. He's widely acknowledged today as the greatest Christian missionary since St. Paul.

The record supports exactly that claim. He was a man of astonishing stamina and zeal. In little more than a decade of tireless ministry, in an era when "social communications" meant direct in-person contact, Francis Xavier baptized somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 souls in India, Southeast Asia, and Japan. Nor did he merely baptize and abandon. He ensured ongoing pastoral support for the communities he created, adapted his evangelizing to local needs and culture, and worked hard to develop an educated native clergy.

He died of fever and exhaustion in 1552 on Sancian (Shangchuan) Island off the coast of China, waiting for permission to enter and evangelize the mainland. He was barely 46 years old. Having left Lisbon for missionary service in April 1541, he never returned to Europe. He was canonized in 1622. And in 1927, Pope Pius XI named him co-patron, with Thérèse of Lisieux, of the foreign missions.

Advent prepares us for the birth of Jesus and his Second Coming at the end of time. We remember and celebrate these things each ...

By Robert Royal.

But first a note: Friends: Pope Leo comes in for a lot of careful scrutiny, for obvious reasons after the controversies generated by his predecessor. That's useful in many ways to the mission of the Church, but sometimes unnecessarily critical. Today's column shows that, in several fundamental ways, he's pursuing the right track - which we'd like to see him do even more openly and vigorously. In online forums, going negative often means more "clicks," a temptation that here at The Catholic Thing we try not to give into. If you want that kind of balanced, truthful reporting and analysis, we believe you won't find them anywhere better. The other kind is easy to find elsewhere.Which is why we also ask that you support this work generously. Please do so, today, so that TCT will be around in 2026 and for many a good day after.

Now for today's column...

Pope Leo has been traveling in Turkey and Lebanon, doing what popes do on such occasions: Visiting religious and political leaders, signing agreements about further "dialogue," calling for peace and respect for human dignity. All good things, and this pope does them with notable dignity. But they're not the main thing. And without the main thing, other things have quite limited prospects. The main thing, the reason for the trip in the first place, was and is the truth confirmed at the Council of Nicaea (Iznik, Turkey today) in 325 A.D. that Jesus was not only a great man - as even many secular people today concede - but that He is the eternal Son of God and the Savior of the world.

Indeed, though Leo has spoken vaguely of some theological controversies as no longer relevant, he also made a point of warning in Turkey that among our many postmodern problems, "there is also another challenge, which we might call a 'new Arianism,' present in today's culture and sometimes even among believers. This occurs when Jesus is admired on a merely human level, perhaps even with religious respect, yet not truly regarded as the living and true God among us." Arianism may seem to be one of those obscure theological controversies that no one much cares about anymore. But at Nicaea, exactly 1700 years ago, it was a hot topic because Arianism was widespread. And continued to be for centuries. And now, again.

This is all well-known to anyone who has looked into early Church history. But many people don't realize how widespread Arianism actually was. When the Vandals invaded North Africa, around the time of St. Augustine's death (430 A.D.), they came not only as "barbarians," but Arian "Christians." The Roman Empire itself "fell" in 476 A.D. when Odoacer, a Gothic "barbarian," deposed the last Western emperor. The causes of Rome's fall are much debated, but it was not by pagan incursion: Odoacer was an officer trained in the Roman Army with connections to the Eastern Roman emperors - and though tolerant of Catholics, an Arian.

Arianism appealed to soldiers, who saw Jesus as not only holy but, in his bravery during torture and death, heroic. It's an odd view for many now. For centuries, the West has tended to turn Jesus into a "nice" figure, all warm and fuzzy. But maybe those soldiers saw something in Him that we might benefit from, especially as Christians are being persecuted around the globe.

Leo's emphasis on Jesus as "the living God among us" also ties in with his warnings about another heresy. As an Augustinian, he's quite sensitive to contemporary "Pelagianism," which the great bishop of Hippo famously combatted about a century after Nicaea. Pelagius was a Celtic-British theologian who was thought to believe - recent scholars, of course, clash about this - that we are capable of following the precepts of the law, without the need for divine grace.

I've seen Pelagius described in some popular accounts as quite reasonable. There are rules. We are rational beings. We can follow them. Which of course ignores our daily experience, to say nothing of St. Paul: "the law is good. . . .bu...

By Dominic V. Cassella.

But first a note from Robert Royal: Friends: Now that we've entered Advent, there's much that needs doing: prayer, fasting, almsgiving - and (sigh) Christmas shopping. New Year's resolutions are also a good idea - since we just started the Church's New Year. Personally, I take this as a time to make a firm resolution to resist just going along with the usual holiday whirl. Cheer, yes, but also a deeper time in anticipation of God entering our world in a way we could never have expected.

And inviting us not to political reform, not to economic development, not to personal improvement in the current sense. There's always time for all that later. And as today's column demonstrates, there are tremendous resources in the tradition to guide us into quite a different realm. Here at The Catholic Thing, we try to keep that as our main focus, not only during the holidays, but always, 365 days a year, because the world needs that more than anything else. And we have several new initiatives in mind for 2026, which you'll be hearing about soon. We're nearing the end of our fundraising period and still need many more of you to do your part. So please, take a moment, right now. Support The Catholic Thing.

Now for today's column...

Early in our marriage, my wife and I were determined to establish an atmosphere of faith in the home for our children. We wanted every day to be centered on Jesus Christ, the week would begin with the celebration of the Liturgy, and the year would be punctuated with the traditional feasts and fasts of the Catholic Church.

Beyond the regular and common feasts of Easter and Christmas, or the major fasts of Lent and Fridays, we decided that we would try to follow some of the lesser-known fasting seasons. One such fasting season is the period leading up to Christmas, called in the Eastern Christian tradition St. Philip's Fast.

Rather than listening to Christmas music directly after Thanksgiving, we would focus on music that is distinctly anticipatory: Advent hymns. We would abstain from meat and sweets and reserve those for Christmas Day and its season. Instead of an early Christmas season before Christmas even begins, Advent would be there to sharpen our desire for the coming of Christ.

Advent and Christmas with the Church Fathers, TAN Books' new self-guided seven-week retreat, begins with that principle in mind.

Unlike some other devotionals I have used, Advent and Christmas with the Church Fathers does not take you by the hand, day by day. Instead, it is a seven-week, theological retreat that guides readers in meditating on the mystery of the Incarnation. Every week is packed with selections from the orations, commentaries, and poetry of authors from the Greek, Latin, and Syriac traditions, as well as from Scripture, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and Holy Mass. And the weeks are punctuated with various questions to meditate upon.

The book begins with the first week of Advent in the Roman calendar and concludes with Candlemas in early February. The first week of the retreat asks readers to consider the virtue of hope. By hope, we are confident in the attainment of that for which we hope. It is a gift from God to hope in eternal life and eternal joy - to not only be optimistic, but expectant of success and of the full enjoyment of God's splendor.

In fact, to begin with hope is at all times suitable while we live in this world of loss and gain. The grounding of this hope is that we, as Christians, have been made co-heirs of the Kingdom, citizens "not of this world." And as a result, we are sojourners - as foreigners in a foreign land - on the way to the Kingdom of Heaven, which by Christ we have a genuine claim. If anyone is going to set out on such a journey, hope of arrival is necessary before the first step can even be taken.

To enkindle this hope, Advent and Christmas, with its selections from the Fathers and reflective questions, helps the reader pray with the best of the Church...

By Fr. Paul D. Scalia

In the 12th and 13th centuries, monks developed some of the first fully mechanical clocks. Their purpose was simple. The monks would come to chapel seven times a day to chant the praises of God and intercede for the world. Clocks enabled them to do so in a more precise, disciplined, and uniform way. With these time pieces, they could, in effect, harness time and better place it at the service and praise of God.

Now, consider what has become of the clock and our treatment of time. For the monks, time was given to God - in work, study, recreation, and prayer. For us, it's mercantile and worldly. We punch the clock and bill hours. We hate it when people waste our time, because time is money. But we do not mind killing time ourselves.

The monks developed clocks so that they could consecrate time to God more deliberately. They understood that time has significance because of eternity, because the Eternal One has entrusted it to our stewardship and care, for His glory and our sanctification.

We, with the most advanced watches, timers, and clocks, have cut God out of time. The results are not surprising. As with any created reality, once time is wrenched from the purpose of its Maker, then it becomes either a god that devours us or a slave that we abuse. So, we find ourselves either enslaved to the clock or killing time.

The season of Advent that begins today is all about time. It affords us an opportunity to consider how we view and use ours. "You know the time," says Saint Paul. (Romans 13:11). Well, we might know what time it is, but we don't really know what time is.

Advent points us to a future time. It looks to when our Lord will come again. Which is why all the readings have, not the Christmasy theme that most people expect after Thanksgiving, but a warning about the end of the world and Christ's Second Coming. In this sense, the Catholic Church is the most forward-looking institution in the world - looking to the most distant future, the end of the world.

"[Y]ou also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come." (Matthew 24:44) That's a sobering instruction. The Church's view of the future is not the progressive's arc of history that bends toward justice. There's no inevitable improvement in human goodness and virtue. On the contrary, the Church sees the world's situation worsening as we approach the Lord's coming.

Ironically, Advent prepares us for that dire moment of the future by remembering the warmest and most beautiful moment of the past, the Incarnation. His coming again in glory is simply the fulfillment and consummation of what He accomplished at His first coming. If we prepare for His birth well - if we "conduct ourselves properly as in the day, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in promiscuity and lust, not in rivalry and jealousy" (Romans 13:13) - then we will be able to stand firm for His second.

This happens now. It is in the present that the past and the future meet and take on meaning. Now, in the present moment, we recall God's past works to prepare for His future coming.

This also explains the Church's liturgical year, which begins today. Yes, the Church still observes the calendar year that begins on January 1, and the Vatican does have a fiscal year. But the Church doesn't really measure time by the world or the market. She measures time by her Liturgy - by her yearly walk with our Lord through His life.

Beginning today, the Church undertakes her annual remembrance of Jesus' life: preparing for and celebrating His birth, contemplating His life, preaching, and miracles - and most of all accompanying Him in His Passion, death, Resurrection, Ascension, and gift of the Holy Spirit.

Time is given to us for this purpose - so that we can come to know Jesus Christ more intimately and conform our thoughts, words, and actions increasingly to His. And because this side of Heaven we will never do it perfectly, we recommit ourselves to trying again - year after...