Rev. George G. Brooks

    Because Catholics celebrate the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on October 7, the whole month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary. Originally called the feast of “Our Lady of Victory,” it was established by Pope St. Pius V to celebrate the defeat of invading... Read More →

  Last week, we celebrated the 248th anniversary of our nation’s Declaration of Independence, a bold act of defiance that ultimately, after eight long years of revolutionary war, resulted in Great Britain’s recognition of the sovereignty of the United States in the Treaty of... Read More →

    This last week in May, either on Thursday or on Sunday, Catholics celebrate Christ’s gift of himself to us in the Holy Eucharist, the sacrament of his Body and Blood. The Feast of Corpus Christi was established in 1264 by Pope Urban IV, who asked St. Thomas Aquinas... Read More →

    The season that extends for forty days from Easter Sunday to the feast of the Ascension celebrates the time when Jesus revealed his resurrection in many ways. The four gospels give us only a selection of our Lord’s appearances—just enough to illustrate their great... Read More →

    The gospel reading for the second Sunday in Lent, this year on February 25 in the “Common Lectionary” (used by Catholics and several other churches), comes from St. Mark’s account of the transfiguration of Jesus, who took Peter, James, and John up a “high mountain”... Read More →

    The twelve days of Christmas end on January 6, the feast of the Epiphany, which celebrates “wise men from the east” (Matthew 2:1) coming to worship the child Jesus in Bethlehem. They are commonly called “Three Kings,” but the Bible doesn’t call them that and doesn’t... Read More →

  The season of Advent begins this coming Sunday, and one of the readings for the season, from Matthew 24:37-4, tells of the end of time, in which Two men will be out in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be... Read More →

    In just two weeks, on the first day of November, the Christian world will celebrate All Saints Day. The celebration of All Saints dates from the 7th century in Rome, when the pope changed the Pantheon from a pagan temple dedicated to all the pagan gods, into a... Read More →

  The Roman Basilica of Santa Sabina on the crown of the Aventine Hill in Rome was given to St. Dominic when he founded the Order of Preachers in 1216, and it remains the headquarters of the Order. It was built in the mid-fifth century and has a tall, pillared nave, light... Read More →

  At exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the morning on August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion killed an estimated one hundred thousand people. John Hersey, a journalist who had been... Read More →