Christmas in Harvard Square is the first recording of the St. Paul’s Choir school, the only Catholic boys’ choir school in America. Led by Mr. John Robinson, a former assistant from Canterbury Cathedral, the boys take their music and their faith seriously. Continue Reading »
In Maryland, the Montgomery County School board has stripped Christmas, as well as all religious holidays, from the school calendar. The vacation days are still there, but under new names that make no religious reference. In Piedmont, Alabama, the Freedom from Religion Foundation pressured the small southern town to drop its “Keep Christ in Christmas” parade on grounds that it was unconstitutional. The bottom line: Christians need to stop alienating their secular neighbors and celebrate something more inclusive. The war on Christmas is real. Continue Reading »
Complainants, a same sex couple, alleged that they were unlawfully discriminated against when Respondent refused to perform their marriage. Continue Reading »
I used to think that the annual Christmas Wars were strictly an American thing, like corn dogs and attorneys’ contingency fees. Only in America, I thought, do people seriously argue about whether to allow Christmas trees in public parks or to permit public school choirs to sing “Silent Night” at holiday concerts. The issues become more and more bizarre. This year, a Maryland school district decided to remove even a reference to “Christmas” in the school calendar–as though the reference amounted to religious oppression and removal would make people forget what holiday comes round every 25th of December. Continue Reading »
The Board of Education’s decision to remove Christmas from the calendar has only succeeded in creating religious conflict. Continue Reading »
In many churches, Christmas Eve is the first time we hear the Gloria since Advent began. We have been awaiting the coming of glory, and now here it is, the angels singing Gloria in excelsis: Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace (Luke 2:14). Both the song and the occasion speak of a new . . . . Continue Reading »
Have there been good Christmas rock songs? I mean Christmas music here, not happy holidays fare like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” etc. The classical canon is of course full of beautiful evocations of Christ’s birth, the annunciation, the flight to Egypt, etc. And then . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s His party, but you can come if you want to, even if, like a football poseur at a Super Bowl party, you forget the cause of the fun.Christmas is not for Christians, it is for the Lord Christ, and Jesus is merry. He loves all people, so if you are not a Christian: “Welcome to the . . . . Continue Reading »
My normal inclinations lead me to conclude 2001: A Space Odyssey. But today my opinion has changed. No longer is it a Star Wars or Star Trek movie. Not one of The Matrix trilogy. Nor is it a “B” movie with Leslie Nielsen. Nope. None of the . . . . Continue Reading »
A meditation on what the incarnation means for you and me:An unspeakably great, unexplorable divine mystery is at the bottom of all this. God’s holiness and righteousness must shut the doors of heaven to us sinners, and He knows that neither we ourselves nor any creature in heaven or on earth . . . . Continue Reading »
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