Page 82 - Obymac News Today

Christian devotees attend a prayer service at Sacred Heart Cathedral to celebrate Christmas in Lahore, Pakistan, on Dec. 25, 2021. / A M Syed/ ShutterstockLahore, Pakistan, Dec 28, 2022 / 17:15 pm (CNA).Despite the continued threat of terrorist attacks, Christian communities across Pakistan celebrated Christmas Sunday in much the usual way, with great zeal and joyfulness. Prayers were offered for peace, progress, and prosperity of Pakistan as well as for the safety of all humanity. The faithful ...

Pope Benedict XVI greets the pilgrims during his weekly general audience in St. Peters Square at the Vatican on Oct. 26, 2006. / giulio napolitano / ShutterstockVatican City, Dec 29, 2022 / 06:35 am (CNA).Pope Emeritus Benedict XVIs condition is serious but stable, the Vatican said on Thursday."The Pope Emeritus was able to rest well last night; he is absolutely lucid and alert, and today, although his condition remains serious, the situation at the moment is stable," Vatican Press Off...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The day after Pope Francis told people retired Pope Benedict was...

Father Paul Seil experienced a Christmas unlike any other in his 67 years of life...

Null / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNARome Newsroom, Dec 27, 2022 / 08:50 am (CNA).On Dec. 26, actors in Greccio, Italy, about 50 miles north of Rome, put on a play telling the story of how St. Francis of Assisi created the first living Nativity scene.Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNAIn 1223, St. Francis asked a friend to prepare a cave with live animals and a hay-filled manger to make Jesus birth come alive for the people at Christmas Mass.Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNAAccording to the first biographer of St. Fra...

Pope Francis delivers his Christmas "Urbi et Orbi" address on Dec. 25, 2022. / Vatican MediaVatican City, Dec 25, 2022 / 07:00 am (CNA).On Christmas Day 2022, Pope Francis delivered his "Urbi et Orbi" address and blessing from the central balcony overlooking St. Peters Square. The following is the full text of the popes Christmas message.Dear brothers and sisters in Rome and throughout the world, Merry Christmas!May the Lord Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, bring to all of you...

Fresco of the Holy Family in Dobling Carmelite Monastery in Vienna, Austria. The Church celebrates the feast of the Holy Family this year on Friday, Dec. 30, 2022. / Renata Sedmakova / ShutterstockDenver, Colo., Dec 25, 2022 / 08:00 am (CNA).The Catholic calendar has several ways to divide the Christmas season. The Churchs Western liturgical tradition sees Christmas as an octave, an eight-day celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ.The octave of Christmas begins on Christmas itself, the feast o...

Null / Credit: Imperial War MuseumsSt. Louis, Mo., Dec 25, 2022 / 10:00 am (CNA).The experience of fighting in "The Great War," World War I, was marked by brutality and misery on a scale never before seen. The grisly realities of trench warfare had already, in just five months, claimed a million lives by the time Christmas came along in 1914, and on the orders of their superiors, young men from both sides routinely gunned or gassed one another into oblivion.But in the midst of such a h...

With a cane in his right hand, 86-year-old Pope Francis delivers his 10th Christmas "Urbi et Orbi" blessing on Dec. 25, 2022. / Vatican MediaVatican City, Dec 25, 2022 / 05:00 am (CNA).In his Christmas Day blessing, Pope Francis prayed that leaders will listen to the "cries of the Prince of Peace" and bring an immediate end to the war in Ukraine and "the other theaters of this third world war."Speaking from the central balcony of St. Peters Basilica on Dec. 25, the ...

Christmas Mass in St. Peter's Basilica Dec. 24, 2022. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNAVatican City, Dec 24, 2022 / 12:20 pm (CNA).A manger, the Christ Childs first resting place, can teach us a lot about the meaning of Christmas, Pope Francis said in his Christmas homily."In order to rediscover the meaning of Christmas, we need to look to the manger," he said on Dec. 24."Yet why is the manger so important? Because it is the sign, and not by chance, of Christs coming into this worl...