The Incarnation of the Word of God took place in the land of Israel (also known as Palestine) 2,000 years ago.

Now that the word “saint ” has been attached to Elizabeth Seton, some Catholics might be conjuring up a gauzy image of an ethereal woman. But this country’s first native-born saint shatters that stereotype. Elizabeth was nothing if not intensely human, her holiness rooted in her wholeness.

Kiana Carter was a youthful first-time mom. Her husband, Artrez, had the same optimistic credentials. They were excited, but the obstetrician cut a wide swath of alarm into their anticipation.

The doctor told them at the gender reveal that their son-to-be was unlikely to live. Kiana remembers the moment.

“Why, why, why, God? I don’t know if I can handle this. But let me raise him. Let me love him. I will serve you the rest of my life. ” AJ is her miracle baby.

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out? ” You could say that quote from Dr. Seuss summed me up when I was growing up. To say I had a very individual style is an understatement.

At an age when most girls were busy playing dress-up and fixing their hair, my hair was covered with a baseball hat. While my friends were playing with Barbies, I was outside tossing a tennis ball against the side of our house. And when my friends covered their walls with posters of the latest teen heartthrobs, I was putting up posters of football great Walter Payton.

Wonder

Ten-year-old August “Auggie ” Pullman (Jacob Tremblay) has been homeschooled his entire life because of Treacher Collins syndrome, a genetic disorder that affects his hearing, sight, and appearance. He loves science and wants to go to the moon someday. Though he’s had 26 reconstructive surgeries, he still wears a NASA space helmet everywhere to hide his face. His mom, Isabel (Julia Roberts), enrolls him in a prep middle school because all the fifth-graders will be new there.

We hear all sorts of statistics about the closing and merging of parishes, the crisis of priestly vocations, the shrinking of religious orders. Those things are happening, but there’s new life brewing too. Ask a young or new Franciscan today about the future, and you hear a lot of hope. “We’re not thinking, It’s going to be terrible around here. What are we going to do? No, we just have to work all together, ” says Abel Garcia, OFM.