Catholic Fire

Image: Gloria in Excelsis Deo Feast of St. John, Apostle and Evangelist Today's Mass Readings The Third Day of Christmas Christmas Meditation: A New Birth for Each One of Us On This Day in Catholic History 1944 - Sister Sara Salkahazi was killed by the Arrow Cross, the Hungarian allies of the Nazis, for hiding Jews in a Budapest building used by her religious order, the Sisters of Social Service. In 2006 she was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI. 1983 - Pope John Paul II pardoned Mehmet Ali Agca, the man who shot him. The Pope visited Mehmet Ali Agca at Rome’s Rebibbia prison and personally pardoned him for the 1981 assassination attempt. 1994 - Four Roman Catholic priests, three French and a Belgian, were shot to death in their rectory in Algiers, a day after French commandos killed four radicals who had hijacked an Air France jet from Algiers to Marseille. Birthdays 1717 - Pope Pius VI (d. 1799) 1822 - Louis Pasteur , French scientist (d. 1895) 1896 - Louis Bromfield , American wr...

Each year Christmas is for us a feast of unity with the Father, of unity with the Holy Spirit, and of unity with the Word Made Flesh. It is this presence of her child, her God, that took hold of Mary and plunged her into an immense thanksgiving, for God was accomplishing marvels in her in giving Himself completely to her, as a little child is completely given and completely relative to His mother. Mary is mother in a stronger and more profound way than all other mothers (this is the summit of maternity), in the sense that her son, her little child, is given to her by the Holy Spirit and resembles her in a unique way. He is all hers, and He gives her the light which allows her to gaze upon Him, to contemplate Him, and to be wholly absorbed by His presence and by His silence. Let us ask Mary that we, too, be absorbed by this presence and this silence that we belong wholly to Jesus and that this feast of the Nativity be a great grace for us, a new starting point in our complete gift to H...