Ahead of Christmas, I heard a lot of ads for a company that digitizes old photos and videos. The pitch was that all of our physical recordings can be lost or destroyed, but a digital version is a gift of security for a loved one’s memories.
Has there ever been a less Christmas-y Advent? I sure can’t remember one. Even during times of great sadness and crisis, we’ve always allowed — I daresay welcomed — the season to comfort and encourage us.
Every year, OFB’s Tim Butler assembles a Twelve Days of Christmas booklet to help anyone interested in meditating on the miracle of Christmas over that season between December 25 and Epiphany. This year’s booklet is the Kings Before, looking at Old Testament kings and what they do to help us understand who Jesus is. The first day’s reading appears on this page exclusively ahead of the full release on Christmas night.
Charles Murray’s editor last week posted something about Murray’s latest book. “Taking Religion Seriously by @charlesmurray may be the most important book I\’ve ever edited,” Elizabeth Kantor wrote.
Such a weird flood of emotions. My church is part of a twice yearly, live streamed “Online Community Prayer Walk.” It always strikes me deeply, but how much more so as it falls on 9/11 and, more immediately, amidst two nation-shaking murders.
Some piles of garbage are better than others. But if you asked me which one I’d like to lie down in, I’d say, “None of them.” The answer should be the same when answering about which sort of politics should influence Christianity.
In fairness, Sola Fide is precisely “Justification by faith alone.” We have to be careful as both advocates and opponents of Protestant theology can misstate what the Solas mean. It doesn’t help me or others to help them misstate their own position.
If he had only waited a few years (and, I guess, not died) he could have blamed it on AI. There has been a whole lot of news in the last week. So there was not the coverage there otherwise might have been about the discovery of proof that the late Pope Francis was lying through his teeth when he announced four years ago next week that the world’s bishops hated the Latin Mass.
The other day, I was talking with a friend between jobs who was thinking about how to prepare for the next step. It took me back to a time I had to take the GRE — and that painful reminder of the need for preparation.