We enter 2025 after a careening, mad season of confusion, hate, deceit and instability. The sense that things are vastly off-kilter and that centers are not holding is almost palpable.

Sometimes, maintaining hope challenges our faith.

As a child growing up in Baltimore, I remember learning about Mother Seton. We were especially proud of this new saint, who had a connection to our hometown. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was not only the first American-born saint, but she had spent so much of her life in Maryland. Sometimes on a warm summer […]

Now 2025 begins. I’m always a little sad to close the book on the past year, but I love the idea of a new beginning. What will this new year bring? What will we bring to this new year?

This destruction wrought by the modern world has theological implications, because Christ, St. John the Evangelist tells us, is the ultimate Word, the fullness of Truth, who gives every other word its meaning and its life.

As a new year begins, it’s natural to look to the future with a sense of hope. But for Catholics, the Holy Year 2025 presents a unique opportunity to explore and cultivate hope — and to examine what makes it so difficult to hold onto.

As we begin a new year and turn the page on the calendar, we may be wondering what lies ahead. We aren’t likely to discover – or need – a pair of gold pants, but maybe we will need something unusual for the journey before us. Whatever that might be, we can trust that God will prepare us – or has already.

The church has constantly taught the belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity from her very foundation, this teaching has also been somewhat of a “hot topic,” even in ancient times.

Thoughtfulness is slow-going, though, and other parts of my “wish list” seem stuck in a stifling inertia of bureaucracy, material reluctance or perhaps (to be charitable) indecision.

The true gift of Christmas is always the same—love come down from heaven to earth, love that changes everything, the Son of God made man, come to show us how to live and how to love.