As we begin our Advent journey this year, we do so in a different mood. It is a mood of confinement and limitation of our usual activity at this time of the year. It is a challenge to accepted norms, what we have come to expect year in, year out, is suddenly called in question.

Maybe we should consider again the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote – “The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come.” Discover more.

How Advent and Christmas are celebrated around the world.

It is, therefore, a year of grace, a jubilee year for our religious-missionary Family. The Church recognized in the intuition of Archbishop Conforti a gift of God's spirit at the service of universal family. It is the “commission," the mission that we Xaverian Missionaries have received as an inheritance; we have the responsibility of making it bear fruit and transmitting it to the future generations...

During these days, we have the joy of accompanying ten of our young brothers in the celebration of their perpetual vows. Eight, nine, ten years ago, they began the path of consecration to the Lord. They did it because they felt in their hearts that God loved them, and by loving them He entrusted to them his own mission, God's mission. Scroll down to the English translation and read more.

An international event of great importance was held in Assisi from 19 to 21 November, defined by some as the true "anti-Davos."

More than 3,300 applications were received for L 'Economia di Francesco (EoF), with over 2,000 participants from 120 countries, mainly from Italy, Brazil, USA, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, France, Mexico, Germany and the United Kingdom. The nations connected in these days were more than 120.

The protagonists of the digital event were 2000 participants under 35 from all over the world, 56% men and 44% women. They were economists, entrepreneurs, students, changemakers and social sector operators driven by the common goal of building a more equitable and sustainable world. Scroll down to the English translation and learn more. Access the EoF website here.

It can be difficult to talk about how we prepare for Christmas without revealing some of our darkest truths.

How do we spend our money? How far short does our family fall from perfection? Who carries the burden of preparing the celebration and why? Ask more.

Click here for Advent resources.

These eleven young men came to search their vocation. They all graduated their secondary school and had sat the West African Senior Secondary Examination (Wassce). They are 6 from Kabala, 1 from Makeni, 2 from Kailahun and 2 from Freetown, Sierra Leone.

This 3-day "Come and See" was held in Freetown, Sierra Leone from the 30th October 30th to November 3rd, with the organizer Fr. Francois Noah SX, Vocation Director in cooperation with Xaverian Missionary Fathers, Joeven, Munari, Bira and Marsel. Keep up with their progress at the Xaverian Missionaries' Sierra Leone website.

Please email Hans Harmakaputra for information on joining.

Surprisingly, 52% of the religiously "affiliated" say they have little to no trust in organized religion, while 38% of the religiously "unaffiliated" say that they are, in fact, religious. According to the report, those two traditional labels, "unaffiliated" and "affiliated," reveal less about young people's complex interactions with religion today than they did in previous decades. Learn more.

As a young Catholic, I want to hear something meaningful from church leadership. In fact, I am hungry for it. While I can sit in the driver’s seat of my own prayer and spiritual practices, I want to feel confident that my belonging to this institution is worthwhile. So yes, I am interested in how powerful people within the institution respond when someone like me raises the long-term disillusionment and disenfranchisement of my generation within the church. Learn more.

This year’s Human Rights Day theme relates to the COVID-19 pandemic and focuses on the need to build back better by ensuring Human Rights are central to recovery efforts. We will reach our common global goals only if we are able to create equal opportunities for all, address the failures exposed and exploited by COVID-19, and apply human rights standards to tackle entrenched, systematic, and intergenerational inequalities, exclusion and discrimination. Learn more.

"We pray that our personal relationship with Jesus Christ be nourished by the Word of God and a life of prayer." ~Pope Francis

By praying, we change reality.

And we change our hearts.

Our heart changes when we pray.

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