What's so Catholic about Christmas? The Church's celebration of Christmas isn't just for a day (or even twelve) but starts with the joyful waiting of Advent and lasts until the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. Fascinating stories of some favorite saints--such as Nicholas, Lucy, and Stephen--make their legends come alive, while the history and lore surrounding some of our most popular feasts--such as the Epiphany and the Immaculate Conception--will help you understand the importance of keeping the Mass in Christmas.

Celebrating a Merry Catholic Christmas is a treasure, one that offers its riches year after year. It is a valuable resource for understanding and celebrating Advent and Christmas as a Catholic. But, more than providing the historical roots of traditions, such as the Advent wreath and Christmas tree, it also features spiritual reflections and suggestions for practices to enrich your family's Christmas preparation and celebration. You'll find all of the major Feast Days of Advent and Christmas along with devotions and traditions that will help your family get more out these important seasons. Inside you'll learn... why candles are placed in windows why poinsettias are used as a Christmas decoration the origin of the Christmas tree when Christmas actually ends and more . . . so that you and yours can appreciate more fully the significance of these traditions and grow in love and honor of Christ.

From USCCB Publishing, this revision of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) seeks to promote more conscious, active, and full participation of the faithful in the mystery of the Eucharist. While the Missale Romanum contains the rite and prayers for Mass, the GIRM provides specific detail about each element of the Order of Mass as well as other information related to the Mass.

What happens when Saint Nick awakes on Christmas Eve with a sore throat and itchy nose? Find out in a Christmas story families and little ones will treasure: The Night the Saints Saved Christmas. With beautiful illustrations and a memorable rhyme, this children's book tells the story of a magical Christmas Eve when the saints unite to deliver the presents and concludes with a touching reminder about the true meaning of Christmas. Children will enter more fully into the reason for the season and learn why we give gifts at Christmas, while growing deeper in their love and appreciation for the saints who watch over us and help us.

Following the success of their bestselling devotional Lent: One Day at a Time for Catholic Teens, youth ministry experts Katie Prejean McGrady and Tommy McGrady offer devotions for Advent and Christmas that help teens make sense of the things that matter most in their lives such as relationships, their future, and coping with stress. Realistic and easy to use, each daily devotion starts with a brief Bible quote that connects with a topic important to teens such as insecurity, pressure, trust, fitting in, finding hope, and choosing joy. A brief reflection helps teens consider the day’s topic through their faith. The McGradys sometimes offer comfort, hope, or reasons for joy in these reflections, while on other days they issue a challenge or two. Unlike many other seasonal prayer books, each day offers exercises and activities such as naming areas of teen’s lives where they want to be more hopeful or to trust God more. The result is a closer relationship with God. Each single-page, weekday devotion can be as brief as five minutes or as long as thirty if a teen chooses to do a bit extra with a feature called “Feel Ambitious?” This activity invites them to read, reflect, and respond to a longer scripture passage that connects to the day’s theme. Saturdays and Sundays offer additional challenges to reflect on the previous week and to look ahead to the next.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

In rhyming text, the author presents an introduction for children and families to the celebration of Advent and the events leading up to Christmas and the birth of Jesus.

Life is messy. It isn't a color-within-the-lines exercise. It's a wild and outrageous invitation full of uncertain outcomes. The mess of life is both inevitable and unexpected. It is filled with delightful mysteries and frustrating predicaments. In our disposable culture, we throw broken things away. So, what will we do with broken people, broken relationships, broken institutions, broken families, and of course, our very own broken selves? We are all broken and wounded. This book is about putting our lives back together, and allowing ourselves to be put back together, when life doesn't turn out as we expected it to. Based on his own heart-wrenching personal journals, Matthew Kelly shares how the worst three years of his life affected him, by exploring this question: Can someone who has been broken be healed and become more beautiful and more lovable than ever before? The answer will fill you with hope. There has never been a more urgent need for us to attend to what is happening within us. This is quite simply the right book at the right time.

This booklet of prayers is a comprehensive collection of Catholic prayers you might wish to use on any given day, but NOT with the expectation that you would use every prayer every day, or even that you would use every prayer ever!Prayers are included that are traditionally used at different times of day. For instance, the Morning Offering, the noon Angelus, the 3pm Divine Mercy Chaplet, and night prayers. Also included are prayers for before and after Mass, meals, and work, and various prayers you might wish to offer for other people. You'll find prayers for traditional devotions like a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, and the Rosary.If you are just beginning to include regular prayer in your daily life, it's best to start in a small and manageable way, with perhaps a Morning Offering and Grace Before Meals. Then, as you become more used to the habit, you can slowly add in new prayers and devotions, like a noon Angelus, a daily family Rosary, and an Examination of Conscience and Act of Contrition at night. If you are able to add daily Mass, a Visit to the Blessed Sacrament, and/or the Sacrament of Confession to your weekly routine, you can use the included prayers here to help you prepare and focus.For prayers, hymns, blessings, and devotions that pertain to particular feast days and seasons of the liturgical calendar, see the Catholic All Year monthly prayer booklets. For an introduction to the concept of liturgical living in the home, and ideas for how to bring the Catholic faith into daily life for you and your family, please see The Catholic All Year Compendium: Liturgical Living for Real Life.