As the coronavirus pandemic continues to limit the ways worshippers can safely gather, the diocese, parishes and area religious communities are doing what they can to make Christmas Mass accessible to all.
Ways to attend/watch Christmas Mass this year
Advent Week 4: Come Lord Jesus! From the Annunciation to Christmas
“Pondering the Gospel scene of the Annunciation prepares us to welcome the newborn Jesus through the eyes of the graced woman who prepared most intimately for our Lord’s birth, his mother Mary.”
Advent Week 4: Always with us
“Wow are we to be, as St. John Paul II says in one of his poems, ‘more with Him, / more with Him, not merely with oneself’? The answer is to imitate Christ, to imitate Mary — to make of ourselves a gift.”
Christmas is sign of God’s preferential love for the poor, cardinal says
Reaching out to and helping the poor “is to imitate God; it is to make oneself small out of love in order to raise up the other,” the preacher of the papal household told Pope Francis, officials of the Roman Curia and Vatican employees.
Sunday Scripture reading, Dec. 20, 2020: Better than you thought
Fourth Sunday of Advent
First reading: 2 Sm 7:1-5, 8b-12, 14a, 16
Second reading: Rom 16:25-27
Gospel: Lk 1:26-38
Pandemic doesn’t stop Boston Catholic high school students’ help for homeless
A weekly encounter with the homeless at the Jesuit-run Boston College High School hasn’t slowed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Holy Cross Family Ministries suggests six steps to foster more family prayer
Among them: Create a sacred space in your home, have family members take turns leading prayer and establish a routine with your family.
Pandemic seen as chance for church ‘to innovate’ ways to engage young adults
There was a recurring theme during a Dec. 7-11 young adult ministry conference: Zoom encounters were adequate in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, but they quickly became a poor substitute for in-person ministry and worship.