In my new book, Behold Your Mother — A Biblical and Historical Defense of the Marian Doctrines, I give eight reasons for belief in the Immaculate Conception.
"There is no more dangerous or disgusting habit than that of celebrating Christmas before it comes."
For all the wandering, this is the first question of the Old Testament — God coming to ask after you, "Where are you?"
G.K. Chesterton, the wondrous apostle of sanity explains why, as he grew into adulthood, his belief in Santa Claus increased:
Christmas is here. Or so the shopping malls, television ads, newspaper circulars, and radio waves would have us believe.
For those old enough to remember it is easy to forget, and for those young enough it is easy not to know how uncertain was the future in 1939.
We say to our Lord in this first week of Advent, "Show me your ways; teach me your paths."
It is difficult to conceive a more retrograde idea than to maintain that the experience of one person cannot be shared, understood, or evaluated by another person.
The great anthropologist Ruth Benedict taught us the distinction between shame cultures, like ancient Greece, and guilt cultures like Judaism and Christianity.
