Now in its fifth year, Nothing More Beautiful at St. Joseph's Basilica is organized around a catechetical talk and a witness talk on a particular theme. The setting for those talks is the celebration of Cathedral Vespers.

FR. RON ROLHEISER, omi

We live with too much fear of God. This has many faces, from the superstitious fear of the naive, to the legalistic fear of the over-scrupulous, to the intellectual fear of the sophisticated. In the end, we all struggle to believe that God is the last person of whom we need to be afraid. But in our own ways, we all struggle with fear of God.

MARIA KOZAKIEWICZ

Second Sunday in Advent
December 9, 2012

We live in a world governed by time – years, months, days, hours and minutes, even seconds must be accounted for by all means. Very aptly, therefore, we are surrounded with all kinds of time-measuring devices: from a variety of calendars, to a plethora of wall clocks and watches of all kinds and shapes.

LASHA MORNINGSTAR

The first thought is always the same and always anxious. Is the candle room door open?

FR. ROBERT BARRON

Just a few weeks ago, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council. So, there has been a good deal of commentary from historians, theologians and even from the handful of bishops and experts who actually participated in the Council five decades ago.

DR. GERRY TURCOTTE

There is a concept known as clock sympathy that may be apocryphal, though it also has a basis in scientific fact. I first learned of this from a clockmaker who explained that whenever you place clocks together in proximity, and no matter how different their rhythms, they eventually harmonize, so that their pendulums swing in concert. It is a concept that invokes both the laws of magic and the laws of physics.

Expressing anguish and sorrow over the death of a pregnant woman in an Irish hospital, the country’s Catholic bishops said that pregnant women must receive all treatment to save their lives, even if it results in the unintended death of an unborn child.

Good health is a benefit that needs to be defended and guaranteed for all people, not just for those who can afford it, Pope Benedict told hundreds of health care workers.

Catholics in the Vancouver Archdiocese have a new way to find out where to attend Mass.

The Islamabad High Court ordered police to dismiss blasphemy charges against a Christian Pakistani girl whose arrest and detention drew international condemnation.