More than sixty local religious leaders and homeless service providers gathered on Boston Common, Nov. 25, to pray for those displaced when a bridge closure resulted in the evacuation of a homeless shelter on an island in Boston Harbor.
Dubbed the Long Island Refugees, displaced homeless residents of the Long Island Shelter lost access to facilities, Oct. 8, when authorities closed the 53-year-old bridge to the harbor island. With the bridge closed as unsafe, residents of the shelter, detox recovery services, and a transitional housing service became displaced.
Without the work of dedicated men and women like this year’s 116 Cheverus Award Medal recipients, the mission of the Archdiocese of Boston would grind to a halt, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley said at the Nov. 23 vespers prayer service on at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross to present the awards.
First presented in 2008 at the celebration to mark the conclusion of the archdiocese’s bicentennial year, the award is presented each year on the Solemnity of Christ the King to recognize dedicated service to the Church and God’s people, with an emphasis on those who serve in a quiet and often otherwise unrecognized fashion.
The Archdiocese of Boston launched into the Year of Consecrated Life, Nov. 30, with a Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross celebrated by vicar general Bishop Peter Uglietto.
Pope Francis, who proclaimed the Year of Consecrated Life in 2013, celebrate an opening Mass the same day in Rome.
Roughly 200 people attended the Mass in the lower church of the cathedral.
In his homily at the Mass celebrated on the First Sunday of Advent, Bishop Uglietto said the season is a time of spiritual renewal in which God comes to save the faithful.
If the saints, because of their sheer holiness, can sometimes seem hard to relate to, the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, can seem even more distant.
But a new exhibition of Western European artwork portraying Mary during the 14th through the 17th centuries shows her in another light and reminds viewers that she was indeed human. Artists portrayed her holding a squirming son, resting during a long journey, visiting her cousin and watching her grown son die.
The exhibition, “Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea” at Washington’s National Museum of Women in the Arts Dec. 5-April 12, includes more than 60 works of art from well-known Renaissance and Baroque artists, including Botticelli, Michelangelo, Durer, Titian, Rembrandt and Caravaggio. It also features the work of four women artists: Sofonisba Anguissola, Artemisia Gentileschi, Orsola Maddalena Caccia and Elisabetta Sirani.