Author name: Molly Hostetler

If you ask people, including many Catholics, about the Immaculate Conception, there is a great chance they will tell you that it is the conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary. The Immaculate Conception is actually the conception of Mary. The Immaculate Conception reveals to us that Mary was freed from the stain of original sin at the moment of her conception, and remained free from sin for her entire life. 

This fresco of the Visitation by Giotto speaks in the language of the Bible, specifically of the Gospels. In a few sparse words it tells us the essentials and carries within itself the content of divine Revelation. There are no ornaments or descriptions, no flamboyant gestures or rhetoric. Like Scripture, this fresco has an inspired simplicity. It gets to the heart of the event. 

The Sermon on the Mount concludes with two apocalyptic warnings, and on this two general comments must be made. First, the Sermon on the Mount is not a presentation of general ethics for middle-class people based on pure reason. Rather, it’s an ecclesial ethic, Jewish in ethos, brought by the Jewish Christ Jesus, and it’s apocalyptic through and through, geared for the final age of the Church. Second, it does not stand on its own as timeless teaching rooted in naked reason but rests on Jesus Christ’s authority. He is its source and point of reference. Jesus here is not some prophet speaking the words of the Lord but the Lord himself come to earth speaking his own divine, dominical words directly.

For Catholics, Scripture is embodied not merely in our lives but also in liturgy. Indeed, it’s embodied first in liturgy, from the Mass to private devotions, and that’s where we find our formation.  

The Gospels are the theological center of the canon of Scripture, and the Gospel of Matthew stands first among the Gospels. Now the Bible and the Gospels within do not stand alone as mere documents to be read, believed, and acted upon. Rather, the Bible finds its true home in the liturgy, for the biblical texts were written for and used in worship from the first, both in ancient Israel and in the earliest Church.

Christmas is traditionally a time of gift-giving, and often we struggle to find the appropriate present for the person we have in the gift exchange or for that family member who doesn’t seem to need anything. Perhaps most difficult of all—if I may adjust an oft-used saying—is what do we give to the God who has everything?

The St. Andrew Novena is a popular Advent devotion. Beginning on the Feast of St. Andrew, November 30, the prayer is said 15 times a day until Christmas. While it’s called the St. Andrew Novena, the prayer is addressed to God and focuses our attention on the coming Nativity. For this reason, it’s also called the Christmas Anticipation Novena.

Cooking for any holiday is work. Just ask any host who prepares Christmas dinner. All good feasts worth their salt require hours, if not days, in the kitchen peeling, chopping, stirring, roasting. They also require weeks of planning, shopping, cleaning, setting the table, and decking the halls. If that’s true today (and trust me, it is), when fancy gas ovens, KitchenAid mixers, and Breville food processors do half the work for us, imagine what Easter breakfast required in a world without electricity!

It’s been a rough week around here. Not “people dying, children starving, hurricanes hitting” rough. Just “deadlines looming, plumbing breaking, house projects overwhelming” rough. Or, more simply put, “stupid first world problems” rough.

As Christians, we’re not called to “entertain” people or put on a show. But we are expected to practice hospitality. “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling,” instructs 1 Peter 4:9.