Moving in a circular motion and united as legs of a caterpillar, members of eight groups howled with joy as they tried to protect the individual holding their team’s shield in a game called “Dragon Tag Shield.” One by one, teams were eliminated until a lone victor stood.

This week you have read (through various news outlets) that there cannot be two more different head coaches than Alabama’s Nick Saban and LSU’s Les Miles. In some respects, that may be true. After a home game on many a Saturday night, Miles can be seen walking to his SUV with his wife, their children and their friends.

Happy New Year. We made it. With that revelation in mind, let’s talk some roundball. The Louisiana Sports Writers will begin their weekly Top 10 poll in the next few weeks, but I’ll fill you in on what to expect as districts begin to open play.

Las celebraciones de la Navidad, transidas de gozo interior por el nacimiento de Jesucristo, el Salvador, son propicias para avivar la fe y la oración. Este ambiente navideño me da pie para volver nuevamente al tema de la plegaria y cómo esta formaba parte de la vida cotidiana de la Sagrada Familia de Nazaret.

La temporada de Navidad es una temporada de regalo total, desenfrenada. Como recordamos el nacimiento del Niño de Belén, es interesante observar que a pesar de celebrar su cumpleaños y deseos de darle regalos, el verdadero regalo proviene de Dios, quien nos dio a su único hijo.

Deadline: Submissions due Thursday (10 days before each issue) calendar@clarionherald.org (504) area code unless noted Jan. 7-14 PARISHES ST. ANSELM, Catholics Returning Home, six-week session, beginning Jan. 9.

Why do we start Mass right away by acknowledging our sins? It may seem strange that almost at the beginning of Mass, there is a mention in the Penitential Act of our sinfulness. The Penitential Act includes a moment for us to consider our sins and plead for God’s mercy.

Photo | COURTESY ROBERT Claverie Robert Claverie, an usher at St. Maria Goretti and a Vietnam War veteran, was honored as a “Peoples Health Champion” during halftime of the Dec. 4 Saints game in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

The Christian churches of Orleans Parish will gather at St. Joseph Catholic Church on Tulane Avenue Jan. 18 at 7 p.m. to pray for greater unity. Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond and Episcopal Bishop Morris K. Thompson Jr. will be co-presiders.

A funeral Mass will be celebrated Jan. 10 at 12:30 p.m. at Loyola University New Orleans for Jesuit Father George F. Lundy, the former director of the Institute of Human Relations and former academic vice president of Loyola University.

If children do not learn to pray from their parents, it will be difficult for them to ever learn to communicate with God naturally, simply and deeply, Pope Benedict XVI said. “In the family, children from the tenderest age can learn to perceive the sense of God thanks to the teaching and example their parents give of living in the presence of God,” the pope said at his weekly general audience Dec. 28.

In the spirit of their Irish foundress, the local conference of Presentation Sisters and 20 lay volunteers sat down with 130 homeless men and women for a Christmas Day lunch of turkey, ham and all the trimmings at the Rebuild Center at St. Joseph Church in New Orleans.

To the youth of the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Peace be with you and greetings from St. Joseph Seminary College in St. Benedict, Louisiana! My name is Joe Bertucci; I am a seminarian from our archdiocese, and I would like to extend to you an invitation to Abbey Youth Fest, a youth rally coordinated by my seminary.

In order to provide pastoral care for the people of God in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, Archbishop Aymond has made the following appointment: ADMINISTRATOR

As a French Quarter hotel executive, Deacon Steve Ferran walked a delicate tightrope whenever he had to assess for out-of-town guests how “safe” the city was. While violent crime is an unfortunate fact of life in most major U.S. cities, New Orleans’ reputation as the below-sea-level version of the Wild Wild West went viral after Katrina.

On Jan. 8, you will celebrate Mass at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor. Last year, you spoke about the “new” Battle of New Orleans in terms of violence, murder and racism. How did you come up with that concept?

In 1950, in the early years of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, rosary groups were being formed nationwide for the conversion of Russia. One such “block rosary” group of men and women from All Saints Catholic Church in Algiers began gathering on Dec. 28 of that year in homes and has continued ever since.