News - December 2024 RSS Feed

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.

About 100 years ago a photographer named Wilson Bentley was the first to photograph snowflakes. This was not an easy thing to do with the technology of the time, but he was successful in sharing more than 5,000 pictures of snowflakes. One of the striking things about these photos is that no two snowflakes appeared to be the same. It became conventional wisdom that each snowflake is different.

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.