Welcoming a New Blogger

Last updated on: January 13, 2015 at 8:32 am By voxnovablog

Vox Nova is very pleased to announce that Jeannine Pitas will be joining us as a regular contributor. She has given us several guest posts already. She provides us with the following biographical information: Jeannine M. Pitas is a teacher, writer and Spanish-English translator currently living in Toronto, where she recently completed a PhD at University of Toronto’s Centre for Comparative Literature. She is the author of the poetry chapbook “Our Lady of the Snow Angels” (published by Toronto-based Lyricalmyrical... Read more

News on Archbishop Romero

Last updated on: January 9, 2015 at 12:16 pm By David Cruz-Uribe

Breaking news from the Catholic News Service: A panel of theologians advising the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints’ Causes voted unanimously to recognize the late Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero as a martyr, according to the newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference. The panel declared Jan. 8 that the archbishop had been killed “in hatred for the faith,” Avvenire reported Jan. 9. The decision is a key step in the archbishop’s cause, following an extended debate over whether he was killed for... Read more

Come, Rejoice With Me!

Last updated on: January 8, 2015 at 3:52 pm By David Cruz-Uribe

A very personal post today, but something I want to share. Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ (Luke 15:8-9) Today is one of great happiness for me: it is the anniversary of finding what I had lost. ... Read more

A reflection on the wedding garment

Last updated on: January 2, 2015 at 7:41 pm By David Cruz-Uribe

Thanks to the folks at Daily Gospel Online here is a beautiful meditation by St. Augustine on Matthew 22:1-14. It puts our vocation as Christians, followers of Christ, into perspective. What is the wedding garment that the Gospel talks about? Most certainly, that garment is something that only the good have, those who are to participate in the feast… Could it be the sacraments? Baptism? Without baptism, no one comes to God, but some people receive baptism and do not... Read more

The Road To Santiago

Last updated on: December 31, 2014 at 11:30 am By voxnovablog

Vox Nova is pleased to welcome another guest post by Jeannine Pitas. “What if something goes wrong?” The words played over in my mind as I boarded the train from Victoria Station to Gatwick Airport. “I can’t believe that’s all your taking,” my friend Rebecca had said earlier that day when I’d handed my small backpack – containing two and a half sets of clothing, one pair of pajamas, a towel, flip-flops, a flashlight, a few toiletries, my... Read more

2014 in review

Last updated on: December 29, 2014 at 6:35 pm By voxnovablog

As 2014 draws to a close, Vox Nova wants to share with our readers the digest of statistics prepared by WordPress at this time of the year. As many of you have noticed, both the number of posts and the number of viewers has declined from years past, but things have stabilized and, we hope, are improving. Our thanks go out to all of you, our readers, who make this blog possible and whose feedback and lively commentary makes posting... Read more

The Tears of the Infant Jesus

Last updated on: December 27, 2014 at 2:31 am By Julia Smucker

The word “solemn” has a range of meaning that borders on the paradoxical. Most commonly, outside of church parlance, it’s synonymous with somber and serious. In a liturgical context, however, it approaches the opposite meaning: the more solemn a feast day, the more festive and celebratory. There is a logical connection here in terms of the weight the Church invests the great solemnities with; in a really good liturgy – one that begins to get at the utter craziness of the truths... Read more

Romero’s Last Christmas Homily

Last updated on: December 25, 2014 at 12:02 am By Julia Smucker

On this night 35 years ago, Archbishop Oscar Romero presided over what would be his last celebration of the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord. In his homily, he preached a word of hope in a particularly tumultuous context to the faithful of El Salvador; yet the tumult of our own time, indeed of every time, gives it a timeless quality, as the Church universal continues to bear witness to the coming of our Redeemer “in the midst of this... Read more

The Christmas Truce of 1914

Last updated on: December 24, 2014 at 7:42 pm By David Cruz-Uribe

This Christmas marks the centennial of a small but remarkable event that has echoed down the last century as a reminder that our war-time “enemies” are human beings, just like us, and that in the midst of darkness, light can shine. On December 24/25, at a number of locations along the Western front, impromptu truces occurred between Axis and Allied forces. There is some historical debate as to the extent of these truces, but it is clear that they happened... Read more

Why the Incarnation Matters for Our Pets (and Subatomic Particles)

Last updated on: December 23, 2014 at 6:05 pm By Nathan O'Halloran, SJ

We all know now that Pope Francis didn’t say that our pets are going to Heaven. What he said was: Sacred Scripture teaches us that the fulfillment of this marvelous plan cannot but involve everything that surrounds us and came from the heart and mind of God. But that doesn’t answer the question for us as to whether they are indeed going to Heaven or not. And, as Jeff Schweitzer puts it well, it’s not enough to ask if our... Read more