“HE WAS was taken to Rome in the year 95, during the reign of the cruel Emperor Domitian, and cast into a kettle of boiling oil; by divine assistance he was preserved in a wonderful manner, but was banished by the emperor to the island of Patmos, now called Palmosa. Here he received those marvellous revelations, called the Apocalypse, which are included in the holy Scriptures, and foretell the fate of the Church of God. After the death of Domitian, St. John returned to Ephesus, where at the prayer of the faithful, and to refute the heresy which denied the divinity of Christ, he wrote his gospel, in which he soars like an eagle to the subject of Christ’s divinity, and proves it indisputably against the heresies of Ebion and Cerinthus. (more…)

By St. Alphonsus Liguori

Mary sings, the ravished heavens
Hush the music of their spheres;
Soft her voice, her beauty fairer
Than the glancing stars appears;
While to Jesus, slumbering nigh,
Thus she sings her lullaby:

“Sleep, my Babe, my God, my Treasure,
Gently sleep; but ah! the sight
With its beauty so transports me,
I am dying with delight;
Thou canst not Thy mother see,
Yet Thou breathest flames to me. (more…)

SB writes:

It was a tiny, old, one-story building with foggy windows that looked closed. The place was near the corner of a nondescript commercial side street on the outskirts of town. I found it while walking with my oldest daughter as we waited on the day before Christmas for her sister to stand outside with a mask in a long line to get (another) ear piercing (viruses only live inside small places with too many people).

The “open” flag hung outside. As I entered the warm shop on a grey winter day, my face shield and glasses also fogged up, and I could not see. I removed them apologetically to wipe them off, finding a gentle older shopkeeper with impeccable English surrounded by foods and crafts from her native Poland. She wore no mask. I explained that it was hard to see, and she, without missing a beat, said it’s been hard for all of us to see. (more…)

I WISH you peace and joy this Christmas day. May God's love for our frail human nature give you courage and hope.  

"ONE Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six. "All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find. In goes my hand into that wool-white bell-tongued ball of holidays resting at the rim of the carol-singing sea, and out come Mrs. Prothero and the firemen. "It was on the afternoon of the Christmas Eve, and I was in Mrs. Prothero's garden, waiting for cats, with her son Jim. It was snowing. It was always snowing at Christmas. December, in my memory, is white as Lapland, though there were no reindeers." --- Dylan Thomas, "A Child's Christmas in Wales"  

  "DURING this Octave before Christmas, monks in medieval monasteries would receive extra treats or gifts each day. At the Saint Benedict Abbey of Fleury (now Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire), the antiphons were recited each day by monks of different rank beginning with the Abbott. "When the chanting was finished, one monk would offer a gift to each of his fellow monks. Often the gift would be associated with the antiphon of the day. "The monk assigned to December 19 might have been the gardener so that he could give a gift from the garden in honor of Our Lord the 'Root of Jesse' (O Radix Jesse). The Abbott would always give the gifts on the last day of the O Antiphons (December 23), and his gifts were often very generous. "Medieval expense records show that the foodstuff the Abbott brought to the table on this day of the Expectation were no meager gifts." --- "The Golden Nights," Rachel L. Lozowski  

  EIGHT years ago last week, on December 14, 2012, 26 people, including 20 children, were allegedly shot and killed in a matter of a few minutes at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut by 20-year-old Adam Lanza, who despite this alleged display of astonishing marksmanship was so physically inept that he could not, according to his father, tie his own shoes. An army of citizen journalists has arisen since then to challenge the Sandy Hook event, which many claim was political theater aimed at gun control. There is no hard evidence that anyone died at Sandy Hook and there is a great deal of evidence that no one did. This video presents some of the most outstanding research and the case against the official story. The children who allegedly died that day were never taken to the hospital, as is standard emergency procedure (even in cases of lethal gunshot wounds). Their bodies supposedly lay rotting for many hours in the school and no parents were admitted inside. Ambulances and EMT's also waited outside and never did a thing. Despite this glaring negligence, the parents, many of whom were actors or had been previously affiliated with the government, the Democratic Party and the Council for Foreign Relations, never filed lawsuits and instead became smiling political celebrities visibly basking in interviews on national TV and traveling the country, advocating gun control and new surveillance of the "mentally ill." A fundraising…

    I Believe in Father Christmas (Song by Gregory Lake) They said there'll be snow at Christmas They said there'll be peace on earth But instead it just kept on raining A veil of tears for the virgin birth I remember one Christmas morning A winter's light and a distant choir And the peal of a bell and that Christmas tree smell And their eyes full of tinsel and fire They sold me a dream of Christmas They sold me a silent night And they told me a fairy story 'Till I believed in the Israelite And I believed in father Christmas And I looked to the sky with excited eyes 'Till I woke with a yawn in the first light of dawn And I saw him and through his disguise I wish you a hopeful Christmas I wish you a brave new year All anguish, pain and sadness Leave your heart and let your road be clear They said there'll be snow at Christmas They said there'll be peace on earth Hallelujah, Noel be it heaven or hell The Christmas we get we deserve  

  A JOYFUL carol from 16th-century Spain.