“Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Just think how much better each one of us and the world would be, if we held fast to this morally correct common sense proverb. But unfortunately, common sense and morality are often not considered when we feel we have been wronged.

This new year, this new decade, begins much like the past year, the past decade: wars between countries, wars within countries, nations around the globe preparing for future wars and astronomical military budgets cemented in place to ensure all this unholy madness continues. As an elixir to this seemingly hopeless trap the world finds itself in, Pope Francis offers us a hopeful path forward away from the blood and tears of war. In his Jan. 1, 2020 World Day of Peace message “Peace as a Journey of Hope: Dialogue, Reconciliation and Ecological Conversion,” the Holy Father writes “Hope is thus the virtue that inspires us and keeps us moving forward, even when obstacles seem insurmountable.”

Regardless of whether your mother is on this, or the other side of eternity, you can still give her the most wonderful gift of all: your love.

Two years ago, speaking before a Vatican sponsored international symposium titled “Prospects for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons and for Integral Disarmament,” Pope Francis said we cannot fail to be “genuinely concerned by the catastrophic humanitarian and environmental effects of any employment of nuclear devices.

When we pray Christianity’s most important single prayer – The Our Father – do we really attempt to understand and meditate upon the challenge of its words – especially “thy kingdom come”?

You are called by God to be a saint! And that all important calling from the Lord is not just to be seriously considered on All Saints Day – but every day! It is no coincidence that the Catholic Church proclaims the Gospel passage of the Beatitudes on the Solemnity of All Saints. For in this most wonderful teaching from the Son of God, we are shown the way to holiness, to blessedness, to joyfulness.

Just imagine for a moment that you have no home. What will you do for meals today? Where will you shower? Where will you sleep? If you have children, how will you provide for them? And how will you cope with being homeless tomorrow, next week, next month?

St. Pope John Paul II, in his powerful encyclical letter “Evangelium Vitae” (“The Gospel of Life”), challengingly said “How can we fail to consider the violence against life done to millions of human beings, especially children, who are forced into poverty, malnutrition and hunger because of an unjust distribution of resources between peoples and between social classes?

It’s good, it’s wise and it sounds so nice: “Season of Creation” – a time for us to stop taking the wonderful God-given gift of creation for granted. A time to wake up and smell the flowers!

You probably remember where you were on Sept. 11, 2001. The day when 19 hijackers commandeered four airliners to strike the World Trade Center’s Twin Tower buildings in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and an unknown site – with the fourth plane crashing outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania – is a day that remains quite vivid for many of us.

It’s that special time of the year again for kids in the northern hemisphere as they start heading back to school. And for those who have discovered the fun of learning, school is an adventure!