It seems that every year we have the same discussion around this time: what is the real meaning of Christmas? and let’s keep Christ in Christmas. There are even campaigns to boycott department stores that refuse to acknowledge the “reason for the season.” It’s so easy to jump onto that band wagon. To add to this, “Christmas” starts ...read more

As Canada’s only Catholic Television Network that broadcasts across the nation 24 hours a day seven days a week, we run a fairly tight operation. With 30 or so full time employees, everyone is constantly doing one thing or another. But when it comes to lunch time, there is no messing around. We sit, we ...read more

If someone asked you to tell them the Christmas story as it’s told in the Gospels, how would you tell it?  What would you include?  What would you emphasize?  How accurate would your retelling be? The common image of the Christmas story that we have in our minds comes from traditional nativity scenes.  We see ...read more

In 2007 I was a fresh-faced reporter at a diocesan newspaper. My editor assigned me to write a piece on the history of the nativity scene. I tracked down a priest and professor of church history and set off interview him about the history of the nativity scene. I did not do a Google search ...read more

The Season of Advent helps us to prepare for Christmas where we recall in faith Christ’s coming among us. It is also a time in which we look at our present lives and reflect on the second coming of Christ in our own lives and at the end of the ages. It is definitely a ...read more

As in past years, Christmas 2013 was what I had expected it to be; in fact it really wasn’t all that different from any other year. Seeing family at the regularly scheduled times, being at the same masses (emphasis on the plural), hearing the same carols and even in some cases the same sermons. Christmas ...read more