Conceived in Heaven, Born in Bethlehem, a Jubilee Year Awaits
If God’s Son was truly to be made a genuine human being, made of flesh and blood, then of course He must have a genuine human mother of flesh and blood too.
The Face-to-Face Nature of Christmas
Taking time to consider what it would have been like to be in Bethlehem on that holy night can radically influence our vision for the celebration of Christmas.
A Fly Fisherman’s Carol
What is the great story and season of Christmas if not a tale and time of transformation?
Keeping a Long Christmas
“Holiday creep,” which begins earlier every year is not motivated solely by a desire for profits. The unconscious sense that things are dreadfully awry provokes an equally unconscious desire to escape into the land of nostalgia.
A Wise Man Ends His Pilgrimage
Life and death are inseparable partners in the course of human salvation, and so it is fitting that we end the season celebrating the birth of Christ with the death of a holy man.
Canceling Church Services on Christmas?
Some Protestant pastors are canceling their Sunday church services this week because it’s Christmas Day and they fear no one will show up.
Must Christmas Be Magical?
In making Christmas the most magical time of the year, it feels like our sad, post-Christian culture is clinging, like a lost child with a tattered teddy bear, to some sort of nostalgic longing for the supernatural.
Christmas, Freedom, and Obedience
On December 17, the day the first “O Antiphon” signaled the intensification of preparations for Christmas, the Church read the genealogy of Jesus from Matthew’s gospel: writing for a predominantly Jewish-Christian audience, the evangelist stresses that the blessings promised to and through Abraham, and the dynastic promises made to King David, are about to be … Read more
The Nativity of Our Lord
Editor’s note: the Rev. James V. Schall, SJ, joined Crisis Magazine as a columnist in January of 1983. He passed away in April. On this second day of Christmas, we honor him by republishing this timely and timelss column, which originally appeared in the December 1995 print edition of Crisis. Requiescat in Pace, Father Schall. … Read more
Have Yourself a Simple Little Christmas
After years of literary success and popular acclaim, Leo Tolstoy became dissatisfied with the complacency of the intelligentsia in what it had accepted as life’s meaning (or lack thereof)—in a word, he was suicidal. He had become convinced that no answer to his existential questions could be found in the “chemical compositions of the stars” … Read more
Christmas in a Cage
I had heard that this store went “all out” at Christmas, but I was still taken aback. Ten-foot-tall nutcrackers, sprawling miniature villages, plush snow unicorns, plastic pine trees encrusted with glitter and glass, jingle bell muzak at high volume, seasonally garish sweaters, gigantic drummer boys para-pum-pum-pumming, a marshmallow army of leering lawn inflatables, and a … Read more
The Well-Fought Fight
The incorporation of Anglican hymnody into English-language Catholic worship is one of the great blessings of the past 50 years. And within that noble musical patrimony, Ralph Vaughan Williams surely holds pride of place among modern composers. Well do I remember the summer day in 1965 when I heard a massed chorus of men and … Read more
The Materialism of Christmas
Pope Francis gave us an early Christmas gift with Admirabile Signum (“Enchanting Image”), his little letter on the ancient custom of setting up Nativity scenes as a way to prepare for the birth of Jesus. Christians began worshipping at the site of our Lord’s birth in Bethlehem almost immediately. So many were coming that Emperor … Read more
This Christmas, Give the Gift of Life
“O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel…” This is perhaps the most well-known Advent hymn—one that floods us with the feelings of the coming Christmas season. But the hymn also raises a question. Matthew’s Gospel tells us that “Emmanuel” means “God is with us” (Mt. 1:23). In the song, then, we pray, “O … Read more
The Incarnation: What It Reveals about God and Us
The season of Advent prompts us to ponder anew the question Jesus put to his disciples two thousand years ago: “Who do you say that I am?” It is a haunting question because the possible answers are few. During Jesus’s life, he was accused of being a deluded babbler, knowing fraud, or demon-possessed lackey; acknowledged … Read more
Waiting in Hope
I hope I get a Nintendo Switch for Christmas… I hope I get a hoverboard… I hope I get an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle… When I was a boy, about nine or 10 years old, my sister and I longed for and hoped to get a horse. Our family had … Read more
Why The Worst Christmas Story is Worth Reading
There are few Christmas stories that begin with a scene so ragged and rich as a threadbare, moth-gnawed Santa Claus who, returning to his flat after hearing the desires of adoring urchins, pulls bottles of chianti from his boots for himself and an old friend on Christmas afternoon. Christmas stories are all about the shabby … Read more
Modern Science Offers Evidence for Christmas Story
I was privileged recently to go on a pilgrimage with Fr. Dwight Longenecker and forty-eight other pilgrims to the Holy Land. We were retracing the steps of the Magi from Jordan into Israel. The pilgrimage was based on the historical detective work that Fr. Longenecker produced in his book Mystery of the Magi: The Quest … Read more
The Truth (of Christ) Will Set You Free
We mark anniversaries of events so as not to forget. We do this as a country all the time—we mark, for instance, the anniversary of our independence on July 4th every year. We do it because we consider the Fourth of July to be the birth of our freedom. Naturally, then, we turn to the founding … Read more
Why Is There an Ugly Christmas Sweater Day?
So much that passes for culture these days is just entertainment. What people consider “culture” is an excuse to have fun. Everything must be full of novelty and excitement. It must be Facebookable and Instagram-friendly. While these fun activities may be popular, they do not constitute culture. They have no depth. For many, even Christmas need … Read more