The examen is not a call to review your sinfulness, like an examination of conscience, although you may find things in your day for which you are sorry. It’s often called an examination of “consciousness” because it reviews your life as you’ve lived it in the past 24 hours.

God will never dishonor himself by going back on this tremendous gift of free will. And when our choices cause us pain, God never stops encouraging us to “confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace for timely help” (Heb 4:16).

In a particularly unwelcome revelation for American Catholics, the federal government announced that same month in a Federal Register notice a procedural change in how it processes green cards for foreign-born religious workers.

Some people came to the Synod on Synodality at the Vatican in October “with the hope that it would bring dramatic change to the life of the church,” Dominican Father Timothy Radcliffe said in a talk in Indianapolis Dec. 6. “Other people hoped it would exactly change nothing.”

When Ukraine’s embattled citizens gather this Christmas, their rich festivities will feel symbolically different — as the festival is celebrated for the first time on Dec. 25, in line with the Western calendar.