• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe

Everyone’s story

December 5, 2018
By Father Joseph Breighner
Filed Under: Commentary, Wit & Wisdom

As I wrote this column, the world was getting ready for Halloween, filled with ghosts and goblins and spider webs.

Hopefully, by the time you are reading this, the world is beginning to glow with light as the world gets ready to celebrate Christmas.

There seems to be an eternal tension between the world of ghosts and the world of the Spirit.

There are so many senseless murders and various acts of cruelty. As a wonderful lady told me recently: “I tell my children that the world was not like this when I was growing up.” She’s right. Growing up, people went downtown to shop. A single murder was major news for months. A purse snatching was a crime to notice.

Today there are so many crimes that we come to accept them as normal. And with a 24-hour news cycle, any crime, any atrocity anywhere in the world is immediately broadcast.

The world, however, does not have to stay like this.

“Light has entered our world, and the darkness did not overwhelm it!”  (Jn 1:5).

And, yes, the world that the Light entered 2,000 years ago was also a cruel world. The Roman occupying army would resort to crucifixions to stifle any crime, any sort of rebellion.

That army would even crucify the Light. But you and I decorate and celebrate and sing carols to celebrate that good really is stronger than evil. God really is greater than all the forces of the universe.

Ironically, good is our natural state. We were created good in the garden.

We only stop being good when we listen to a voice other than God’s voice.  Christmas reminds us that God, as Christ, has entered our world again in person to let us know that God never abandons us, that evil ultimately will not triumph.

Free will is the power to act like God. Free will also means that we have the power to contradict God. We can live down to the cravings of the dirt, or live up to the very power of the Spirit of God.

There are roughly 7 billion people on our planet. On any given day, 7 billion people do not commit a crime or any other atrocity. Only a relatively small number actually do that. And while television newscasts may save a special story of goodness for the last news item, in fact goodness is the norm. Evil is still the exception.

So Christmas is everyone’s story. God once entered history in a special way. And God never left.

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Father Joseph Breighner

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

Comfort my people: Unexpected surprises in life

A father’s gift 

Question Corner: Is the parish administrator the same thing as a pastor?

Yes, it’s our war, too

Asking for human life and dignity protections in the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’

| Recent Local News |

Archbishop Lori offers encouragement to charitable agencies affected by federal cuts

Incoming superior general of Oblate Sisters of Providence outlines priorities

Archbishop Lori announces appointments, including pastor and associate pastor assignments

Oblate Sister Trinita Baeza, teacher and pastoral associate in Baltimore, dies at 98

OLPH’s fourth eucharistic procession, set for June 21, ‘speaks to the heart’

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • House Republicans advance bill to repeal FACE Act
  • Archbishop Lori offers encouragement to charitable agencies affected by federal cuts
  • Incoming superior general of Oblate Sisters of Providence outlines priorities
  • Archbishop Lori announces appointments, including pastor and associate pastor assignments
  • Pope ‘deeply saddened’ by tragic Air India plane crash
  • Television Review: ‘Patience,’ June 15, and streaming, PBS
  • While the U.S. bishops go on retreat this June, business follows them
  • Diversity is cause for strength, not division, pope tells Rome clergy
  • Oblate Sister Trinita Baeza, teacher and pastoral associate in Baltimore, dies at 98

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED