Every Christmas our family presents my parents with a beautiful calendar full of grandchildren pictures. Everyone loves the calendar. Everyone except, well, maybe the person who knows the calendar is going to be her responsibility the next year.

Alas, like many other hymns, “For All the Saints” is an endangered species today, gutted by parish music directors and pastors who commit the grave sin of not singing a hymn in its entirety — or worse, who bowdlerize the lyrics to coddle the sensibilities of the Church of Nice.

In 40 years of working with the addicted, I have learned that these negative  behaviors block the positive power of grace.

Our fourth grader may have only had one brief job to do, but he embraced it wholeheartedly. He held the Star proudly and peered through the center of it with an enormous smile. His eyes, his smile, and his whole face were full of joy.

When we complain about another, we often take a position of judgment. Yet only God is the ultimate judge, our Christ.

Christmas comes at the same speed no matter how quickly or slowly you open those Advent calendar doors.

Everyone who comes to us should be reminded that through their Baptism, they are priests, prophets, and kings — not just in some fairy-tale sense, but truly, because their relationship with Christ makes them so.

Those who possess true joy are not deterred by their problems, by distress or by deprivation – their own or that of others.

Yes, belonging to places is good – it feels right, we fit in. We should all belong to some place, to some group, to some church, even to someone. Where do you feel as if you belong?

As the Christmas season approaches, George Matysek shares the joys of having five children age 5 and under.