We are called to be Stars of Bethlehem, leading men and women to Christ. The chief vocation of the Church is to proclaim the Good News to all nations. How do I share in that great vocation?

Pope Francis prayed for the victims of a deadly earthquake that hit Japan on New Year’s Day.  Listen to this story and more in a wrap-up of the weekly news from Asia.

Each of us is presented with the same vocation as Mary. God says to you and to me, "Make my Son present in the world. Forgive sins. Bring healing. Live with faith that my love is stronger than your death. By word and deed, assure the world of my love."

If there were no answer to our search and longing, then, indeed, our lives would be futile. What use is there for a hunger that cannot be filled? What sense can there be to an existence defined in part by something that is meaningless?

Today we remember and celebrate the fact that we can know God's glory and power not as some sort of information, but as a person. So, on Christmas Day we move from the story to the program, from what happened long ago to our vocation today.

God doesn't choose the way we would. God chooses worldly weakness to proclaim divine power. That's the reason Mary was chosen and the reason we have been chosen.

Christians across Asia have prepared culturally and spiritually to celebrate Christmas and New Year despite hardships and challenges. Listen to the story and more in a wrap-up of the weekly news from Asia.

Our focus on the Christ child at Christmas can distract us from seeing the deeper reality of the Incarnation, that in Christ’s coming among us as one of us our whole life, including our death, has been embraced by God. We are invited at Christmas to strengthen our embrace of the whole reality of life, believing that God is with us in it all. Father William Grimm  shares some thoughts on this.

The place we really live our faith is not in a church. It is in the desert of our workplaces, our schools, our streets, our homes. There is no other place for the world to hear our call to prepare the way of the Lord, to join us on the way of and to the Lord.

A group of Catholics in an Indian archdiocese hailed the resignations of two senior leaders of their Eastern rite Syro-Malabar Church amid an ongoing crisis over a liturgy dispute and land scams. Listen to the story and more in a wrap-up of the weekly news from Asia.