
Notes from a Friar: Ordinary Time Is Anything but Ordinary
We’ve finished the Christmas season and are into Ordinary Time—or as a friend of mine calls it, “Boring Time.”
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We’ve finished the Christmas season and are into Ordinary Time—or as a friend of mine calls it, “Boring Time.”

“You formed my inmost being;
you knit me in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, so wonderfully you made me;
wonderful are your works!”
(Psalm 139:13-14)

The Nutcracker and the Four Realms
Young Clara’s (Mackenzie Foy) late mother leaves her a special gift, which she opens on Christmas Eve. It is a bronze egg with a note that reads: “Everything you need is inside. “

Twenty-five years after Mary Poppins first appeared to save the Banks family, she returns to London just in time to save the day again.

The Franciscan Sisters of Mary (FSM) like to tell how their founder, Mother Mary Odilia Berger, made an impact in the streets of St. Louis in the early 1870s as she brought food and medical supplies to the sick and to the sisters in her religious congregation who were caring for them. Passersby noticed the congregation’s charity and placed donations in Mother Odilia’s basket.

READ
BAR 5:1-9
In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,
when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea,
and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee,
and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region
of Ituraea and Trachonitis,
and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene,
during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas,
the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert.

We all have family traditions we cherish. This author shares 10 ways to adapt them as our young children become adolescents.

The idea of a live Nativity scene might seem common nowadays. But in St. Francis’ time, it broke new ground and opened up ways to deepen our spirituality during Christmas.

It matters what vision of the world you have; it matters where you place your hope. The Advent season gives us a bright and beautiful North Star: an angel-announced promise of God’s love to be made incarnate in Jesus.

Following in the footsteps of St. Francis, three friars have set up shop in the poorest neighborhood in Detroit.