
Pope to skip Dec. 31, Jan. 1 liturgies due to sciatica, Vatican says
Pope Francis will not preside over the traditional end-of-the-year prayer service nor the New Year’s Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica due to “painful sciatica,” the Vatican said.
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Pope Francis will not preside over the traditional end-of-the-year prayer service nor the New Year’s Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica due to “painful sciatica,” the Vatican said.

There is a lot of talk these days about unity. Some of it is legit. Some of it is more of a cop-out—a reaction to feeling uncomfortable with tension, which is core to progress.

What better moment to reflect on both the brevity and great expanse of time than at the close of one year and the beginning of the next?

After an abusive childhood, Saint Sabas found refuge in a monastery, where he also found his vocation to the monastic life. Permitted to live as a hermit, Saint Sabas soon found others attracted to his way of life, and he eventually became the abbot of a monastic community. As a result, he is known as one of the founders of Eastern monasticism.
Saint John Damascene was born in Damascus, but spent most of his life in a monastery near Jerusalem. Little is known about his life, but John is remembered as the last of the Eastern Church Fathers. He gained fame as a poet and an author.

In one of the regions of El Salvador most battered in a bloody war funded by American dollars, four Catholic women from the U.S. were hailed as examples of solidarity, of Christian faith and martyrdom, as Salvadorans remembered them Dec. 2, the 40th anniversary of their assassination.

Guaranteeing justice for all men and women is not possible while a few people control most of the world’s wealth and everyone else’s right to a dignified life is disregarded, Pope Francis said.

One by one 11 senior churchmen, including two U.S. citizens — Cardinals Wilton D. Gregory of Washington and Silvano M. Tomasi, a former Vatican diplomat — knelt before Pope Francis to receive their red hats, a cardinal’s ring and a scroll formally declaring their new status and assigning them a “titular” church in Rome.

Saint James of the Marche was born in the Marche of Ancona. Before joining the Friars Minor, he earned doctorates in canon and civil law at the University of Perugia. He lived a very austere life, and was an extremely popular preacher, who spread devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus.

Throughout the season of Advent, we explore the mystery of the Incarnation, Jesus letting go of divine splendor to embrace a human existence.