MONSIGNOR JOSEPH PELLIGRINO is a priest of the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida and pastor of St. Ignatius of Antioch Catholic Church in Tarpon Springs.
Once a year I put on my classical duds and go to New York City to see an opera or two. A few years ago I saw Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The story is sometimes called Don Juan. It is the story of a horrible man who uses and dumps as many women as he can;...
As we exit the Christmas season and begin the season of the year, the Church takes us to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. For the next two weeks we have various accounts of the calling of his closest disciples. This week’s is taken from the...
This is the last Sunday of the Christmas Season and the First Sunday of Ordinary time. The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord concludes Christmas and begins the meditation on the ministry of Jesus. There are four aspects of this feast: 1) the Lord...
On Christmas, I focused on the infinite love that God has for each of us and all of us. He became one of us and our “soul felt its worth,” to quote the verse in O Holy Night. Today, we consider another of God’s many gifts to us, the gift of a...
O Holy Night. Along with Silent Night and O Come all ye Faithful, O Holy Night is a Christmas hymn that touches us deeply. We want to sing it or hear it sung on Christmas. One of the many beautiful verses in O Holy Night is: Long lay the world in...
As the whole world prepares to celebrate Christmas, making believe that the Christmas Season has started (It hasn’t yet, you know), I want to pause with you to consider the real need, the real desire we all have in our lives. This need, this deep...
“Hail, full of Grace, the Lord is with you,” that greeting that Gabriel gave to Mary is part of our Catholic DNA. We say it over and over when we recite the Hail Mary, “Hail Mary, full of Grace.” Perhaps we have heard this greeting so much, we have...
Thirteen years ago we were all in a funk. The Christmas season was beginning, the stores were offering all their bargains, but the people of the United States were still in a national shock and not in much of a mood for an oncoming celebration. The...
