For 65 years, Sr. Sue Mosteller has been a Sister of St. Joseph, but her relationship with St. Joseph himself reaches back even further. As a 17-year-old boarding student at the congregation������Ƶapp Toronto girls’ school (up from the United States, and an Anglican to boot), Mosteller and her sister were called into the office and given a piece of devastating news — far away in Ohio, their father had died.

This unforgettable year, this annus horribilis, is mercifully drawing to the end, but the virus that has so consumed our lives is not.

CLEVELAND -- A once-every-two-decade conjunction involving the solar system������Ƶapp two gas giants will give earthbound observers a look at a so-called “Christmas Star” on the winter solstice.

A spruce tree donated by a retired Catholic teacher is helping to make Christmas in Kenora in northern Ontario a little merrier.

JERUSALEM -- Walk down St. Peter Street from the Old City������Ƶapp New Gate, past some shuttered shops and the closed Knight������Ƶapp Palace hotel, continue down through the winding stone-paved alleyway of the Christian Quarter and soon you will hit “Santa Lane.”

In a year that has been anything but normal, the Christmas spirit is still alive and well at Ontario Catholic schools.

The students from Sudbury, Ont.������Ƶapp Marymount Academy have let Canadian military serving overseas that they aren’t forgotten this Christmas season.

By Christmas Eve the Advent wreath is aglow with the candles of love, hope, joy and peace, and we await the lighting of the White Candle which signifies the coming of Jesus into our world and into our lives. We pray again that this presence will become a reality which we can sense and touch, but for many it becomes an elusive dream that vanishes when they awaken from their restless sleep.

Already vulnerable and alone, many homeless and at risk youth are finding themselves dealing with more than the coronavirus and its restrictions this Christmas. To them, loneliness is another pandemic.

Isn’t it fascinating how, back in spring 2020, at the beginning of the coronavirus crisis, the first impulse for comfort and familiarity was an urge to watch Christmas shows? The goodwill and good feels of Christmastime pageantry is powerful medicine.