Both Advent and Mary’s pregnancy are well-advanced. Advent is half over and, after returning from Elizabeth’s, Mary is in her second trimester. Jesus is about 15 weeks old, with a beating heart, ...

Sunday, Dec. 18, is the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Mass readings: Isaiah 7:10-14; Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-24. We tend to sentimentalize the Christmas story as we think of the ...

The Christmas tree was a scrub cedar hacked from the edge of the woods that bordered the farm. Big-bulbed lights, strung in barber pole fashion, generated almost as much heat as the nearby woodstove.

Of all the characters of Christmas, nobody pays attention to Joseph. Mary is the one everybody always focuses on – sometimes even more than Jesus. People usually remember the shepherds keeping watch ...

A Latin American Christmas tradition kicks off this weekend with celebrations to begin the festival, and people across Michigan can take part this year. Latino Catholic communities across the state ...

In the days before Christmas, the traditional “posadas” are usually celebrated in Mexico, recalling the difficulties of St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary in finding a place for Jesus to be born. How did ...

This image of the Holy Family, created by artist David Hayward, emphasizes the fact that Mary, Joseph and Jesus were refugees, a frightful circumstance, as contributor Cathleen Falsani points ...

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is the greatest story about Christmas ever written—even better than the one with Mary and Joseph and the manger. The 1843 tale of a miser browbeaten by ...

This year marks the 800th anniversary of the hallowed Christmas Eve in 1223 when St. Francis of Assisi summoned the people of Greccio, Italy, to a manger he had arranged with straw and a breathing ox ...

On the second day of Christmas, my true love said to me, “You ought to write about the family that took in the South Korean tourists who were stranded near Buffalo.” Indeed, Alexander Campagna and his ...

A church nativity scene which features two mothers of the Baby Jesus, instead of the conventional Mary and Joseph figurines, has sparked anger among conservative Catholics and politicians in Italy.