Merry Christmas! Advent is over, but the Christmas Season has just begun! The weeks leading up to Christmas are extremely busy. We can get so distracted with lists and parties that it is easy to lose sight of the true meaning of the Advent and Christmas seasons. In all the hustle and bustle, as good Christian stewards, we are called to keep Christ in Christmas.

Merry Christmas! I hope and pray that you and your family enjoy this Christmas season—here are a few suggestions on how to make it holy.

JACKSON, MISS – What began as a seed planted in 2007, became a reality in 2024. Catholics from several dioceses descended upon the Cathedral of Saint Peter the Apostle in Jackson on Dec. 21 to celebrate the installation and blessing of a life-size bronze statue of Servant of God Sr. Thea Bowman, FSPA. Among those attending the celebration were Mary Ott Tremmel Davidson, the sculptor, and parishioners from several parishes in the Montgomery and Mobile areas.

Fr. Paul Halladay, a priest of the Archdiocese of Mobile, has been appointed vocation director for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, effective Jan. 22.

Fr. Frank Joseph Bolling, who had been a priest for 20 years, died Jan. 1, 2025, at the age of 94.

As many as 35 million visitors are expected in Rome in 2025. Many of them will be pilgrims for the jubilee, a holy year the church celebrates every quarter-century that began on Dec. 24 and ends Jan. 6, 2026. While numerous events are planned in Rome and at the Vatican to mark the Jubilee 2025, this Holy Year is for the whole Church and there are ways to celebrate without leaving the Archdiocese of Mobile.

This month, the ballroom of the Cathedral rectory was the site for two very special retirement celebrations of archdiocesan executive directors. Some of the central ministries of the Archdiocese of Mobile report directly to me, but most are organized into five departments: Catholic Education, Catholic Social Services, Development/Stewardship, Financial Services and Legal Services.

We are so blessed to live in a prosperous country. Many of us don’t worry about our next meal or how we are going to pay the power bill. This physical plentifulness, however, also presents a real spiritual danger for us. Being in a land of plenty can lead us to spiritual laziness.

Loneliness. The subject comes up quite often in the media, especially during the holiday season, that “most wonderful time of the year.”

Give thanks to God, bless His name” (Psalm 100:4). Thanksgiving is the one holiday where everyone across our nation, regardless of our differences, gives thanks for our many blessings. How amazing would it be if everyone lived every day of their life like it was Thanksgiving? That is precisely what a faithful Christian steward is called to do.

I played football, coached football and have also spent about a decade as a broadcaster for McGill-Toolen Catholic High School football games on Archangel Radio.

The Men of St. Joseph will host its annual Brotherhood Breakfast for men on Dec. 7 at Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos Parish in Spanish Fort. Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi will celebrate the 8:30 a.m. Mass and the breakfast program will follow at about 9 a.m.

Thirty-five years ago, the son of a great historian helped make history when he asked the question that triggered the demolition of the most grotesquely expressive artifact of the Cold War.

It is getting to be that time again. The stifling heat has finally departed, leaving very temperate temperatures. We are on the cusp of the holiday season and in just a few days we will take part in the tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving. It is appropriate that we individually give thanks to God.

The Cathedral-Basilica of the Immaculate Conception will embrace an Advent and Christmas tradition that dates to the 19th century.

In October of 2024, a group known as “Do No Harm” released the Stop the Harm Database (STHD), a searchable internet resource that comprehensively catalogs sex change treatments performed between 2019-2023 on minors in health care facilities throughout the United States.

Synodality has become a bit of a buzz word in the church. Pope Francis has been talking about synodality since the beginning of his pontificate. He believes it is “the path that God expects of the church in the third millennium,” a “constitutive,” or essential, element of the church.

I remember many lessons that my father taught me. I recall him driving me to a high school football game and his parting words to me were, “Play with reckless abandon.” It was a good lesson and can certainly be transferred to other areas of our lives. We can live with reckless abandon, and by that, I mean live life to its fullest.

It is getting to be that time again. The stifling heat has finally departed, leaving very temperate temperatures. We are on the cusp of the holiday season and in just a few days we will take part in the tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving. It is appropriate that we individually give thanks to God.

The Rosary is a grace filled way to meditate upon the life of Christ and our faith. In 2001, “Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy,” issued by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments, urged that we use the Rosary as part of our prayer and to remember its value. A year later, Pope John Paul II published his beautiful Apostolic Letter on the Rosary.