Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you (Luke 1:28)  These words of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary help us know the unique gift Mary was given. As we celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception we celebrate Mary, the daughter of St. Joachim and St. Anne, and the mother of our savior Jesus. We celebrate God’s …
Readings: Isa.11. 1-10; Romans15: 4-9; Matthew 3:1-12 Congratulations we are on the Second Sunday of Advent. I know that in the hubbub of Christmas preparation our minds can sometimes be distracted, even at Sunday liturgy. So, for this reason, it would be good to focus on a few phrases from today’s readings that are beautiful …
“In Thee Oh Lord I have put my hope.  Never let me be confounded.” These are the last words of Saint Francis Xavier who, in 1927, was named along with Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, co-patron of all foreign missions. St. Therese Lisieux prayed for missionaries, yet never left her cloister convent. St. Francis Xavier was known …
When watching an old episode of Bill Nye on YouTube with my granddaughters, I was struck by how much has developed with understanding and treatment of HIV and AIDS since the episode was made in the 1990s, an episode I remember watching with their mother. When HIV first began infecting humans in the 1970s, scientists …
Readings: Isa. 2:1-5; Romans 13: 11-14; Matthew 24: 37-44. Once again Advent is upon us- when the Church offers us a time to prepare for the Solemnity of the Nativity of the Lord on December 25 (i.e. Christmas). While for many people this time of year seems frantic with many things to do, for others …
Today is World Toilet Day. And for those of you who think this is on a par with National Toaster Day (which everyone knows is the last Thursday in February1), it is not so! More than half the world’s population (4.2 billion people) live without safely managed sanitation.3 673 million people in the world live …
Many of us work hard to keep healthy. We exercise, watch our diets, take medications to lower our cholesterol, and watch our blood pressure to help prevent heart attacks. Even though heart attacks can be treated, we know that our lives and health will in many cases depend upon preventing the heart attack in the …
Today is World Prematurity Day with it’s theme this year of “Born too Soon: Providing the right care, at the right time, in the right place.2”  Premature birth is the leading cause of death in children under the age of five worldwide and is a cause of multiple health problems in these infants.1 More than …
Today is World Pneumonia Day. While some of us have had family members who were quite ill or died of pneumonia, the memories for many of us of pneumonia in ourselves or in family members is that of a respiratory illness which required a trip to our doctor and a prescription for antibiotics which cured …
The year is 1900 and the country is the United States. A man walks into his doctor’s office complaining of a persistent cough with fever, chills, night sweats, and weight loss. After an examination, the doctor informs the man that he has tuberculosis. Unfortunately, effective antibiotics to treat his illness will not be discovered for …