“Nothing will be impossible with God.” It’s a simple, startling pronouncement from the angel Gabriel, one that, perhaps, we still have a hard time believing. And the difficulty lies not in those kind of existential conundrums that high school philosophers are so fond of, like: “Can God create a stone so heavy God can’t lift it?” No, the difficulty here is much…

In case you were wondering, we didn’t run out of blue candles. Our Advent candle is pink today for a reason. It is the third Sunday of Advent, sometimes called ‘Rose Sunday,” but traditionally known as “Gaudete Sunday,” ‘gaudete being a Latin word that means ‘rejoice,’ because the proper introit for the day begins with that word. Our ancestors, in their wisdom,…

When I was young, December always seemed like the longest month of the year. Despite all the excitement and bustle of the holiday season, it seemed like Christmas would never get here. From the day after Thanksgiving, when the whole family would be involved in baking the first batches of Christmas cookies (and we were finally allowed to play Fred Waring and…