VIEWS

Hope is a concept we can speak about blithely until everything falls apart. It’s when troubles abound that we find out how much we need the unshakeable hope that’s rooted in Christ and His triumph over sin and death.

Years ago I met a man from the former Soviet Union who had grown up in a family of atheists. He was living with his girlfriend when I first got to know him, but a few weeks later, he had moved out.

What better time to remind ourselves of the value of life than at Lent, when the message of sacrificing for others beckons us to see and respect the value of all humanity.

They finished praying the Rosary and then started in on the singing of hymns. We sat there in the little mission church, waiting for Mass to begin. But would it?

On Dec. 30, 2016, the Feast of the Holy Family, a revised Rite for Marriage began to be used throughout the English-speaking Church. It is called The Order of Celebrating Matrimony. Though much of the Rite remains the same, the changes serve to deepen the beauty of the symbolic expression of marriage, as well as to radiate the unchanging truth of marriage in our culture.

En 30 de diciembre de 2016, en la fiesta de la Sagrada Familia, un Rito Revisado para el Matrimonio comenzó a ser utilizado en toda la Iglesia anglosajona. Se llama la Orden para Celebrar el Matrimonio. Aunque gran parte del Rito sigue siendo el mismo, los cambios sirven para profundizar en la belleza de la expresión simbólica del matrimonio, así como para irradiar la verdad inmutable del matrimonio en nuestra cultura.

La Iglesia nos ha dado una nueva traducción al inglés de su orden de celebración de matrimonio. Este nuevo documento litúrgico nos ofrece una buena oportunidad para la catequesis sobre la vocación del matrimonio en la Iglesia y la sociedad. Teniendo en cuenta esto, a partir de hoy, examinaré algunas de las ideas frescas y nuevas prácticas litúrgicas encontradas en este maravilloso nuevo ritual.

The Church has given us a new English translation of her Order of Celebrating Matrimony. This new liturgical document offers us a good opportunity for timely catechesis on the vocation of marriage in the Church and society. Considering this, beginning today, I shall lift up some of the fresh insights and new liturgical practices found in this wonderful new ritual.

Ah, January. From sales on treadmills and exercise equipment to late-night commercials hawking weight-loss schemes, the country, it seems, is determined to get in shape after indulging in too many Christmas cookies.

As people of faith, we know that this was not the end of the story. On the third day, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, rose from the dead and gave hope to all who believe in Him that, as St. John will remind us, “we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 Jn 3:2). Like Jesus, we will die. Like Jesus, we will rise from the dead. The reality that we are confronted with death is both mysterious and full of hope.