The people waited but as the silence continued, the distance between God and His people grew. They reached out to Him with attempts to perfectly follow the Law. Then God would notice them and speak once again as He had in the past. But the silence remained and deepened. Then one night, one very holy night, the silence was broken with the cries of a baby. The Father was speaking through His Son in a ...

  In a few short days the great solemnity of Christmas will be celebrated. The last days of Advent may be easily overlooked with last minute shopping, cooking, baking and other preparations for Christmas that take center stage. In a sense, we never lose the anticipation of children for that great day. Yet, before the Christmas celebration begins, it is important to remember one important fact: Advent never really ends. Oh, the Advent wreath is put ...

The summer before my ordination was spent as a contract chaplain at Ft. Hood in Killen, Texas. At the time, Ft. Hood was the largest army post in the free world. The first two or three weeks had occasional thunderstorms, with some of them pretty bad. The rest of the summer was sunny and hot, without a drop of rain. In mid-August I returned to Washington, D.C. to finish my degree work and prepare for ...

Saint John was born, probably in 1540, in Fontiveros, near Avila in Spain. His father died when he was very young and he had to move with his mother from one place to another, while he tried as best he could to continue his education and, at the same time, to earn a living. In Medina in 1563 he was clothed in the Carmelite habit and, after a year's novitiate, was given permission to follow ...