Br. Bradley Thomas Elliott, OP

This season we celebrated the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, when we as Christians remember and extoll the great mercy of our Lord who, in creating His own mother in the womb of St. Anne, bestowed upon her the singular gift of being preserved from the stain of original sin from the moment of her conception. As we approach the Solemnity of the Nativity, the Motherhood of the Blessed Virgin Mary becomes a prominent highlight of our devotional lives. Although many Catholics have been familiar with these devotions from childhood, I, having come to the Church in adulthood, have not always found it inspiring or even agreeable. …

Br. Chris Brannan, OP

Advent has now begun, and for us students that means that the Day of Judgment is quickly approaching. Of course, by “Day of Judgment” I mean Finals Weeks in mid-December, when all of our studies for the semester are summed up in term papers and final exams, and our professors “judge” our learning for the semester by assigning grades. It is a time of busyness and of stress, of late nights, and those disconcerting moments when we think, “can I get it all done in time?

I suppose that, in general, the several weeks before Christmas are that way for many others as well: gift-purchasing, holiday party-planning, travelling arrangements, and general preparations for the Christmas season tend to fill our time and generate a bit of stress. …