In a microwave society, everyone wants instant results. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, especially when you are in the business of saving lives gone horribly off the tracks. Kevin Ryan, the president of Covenant House, a ministry started 40 years ago to rescue homeless teens from unthinkable family situations or from their own demons of drug or sexual addiction, knows all about percentages, odds and baseball.

More than 2,000 years ago, a child was born to a teenage mother whose husband was not the father of her baby. Yet, this young woman had said “yes” to what seemed to be impossible, and her husband said “yes” to raising and caring for both her and her child.

December 30, 2012 To: The Clergy, Religious and Laity of the Archdiocese of New Orleans Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ: Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI, at the recent Synod in Rome, repeated his call for a Year of Faith and a focus on the New Evangelization.

Because of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays taken by the Archdiocese of New Orleans, the Clarion Herald will not publish issues on Dec. 29 or Jan. 5, 2013. The Clarion Herald will resume publication on Jan. 12, 2013.

Church parishes in the Archdiocese of New Orleans hosted several special celebrations in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Above, a mariachi band from Texas processes in song with the statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe being carried by parishioners Dec. 15 during a feast day Mass at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church on North Rampart Street, followed by a meal.

The Daughters of St. Paul who operate Pauline Books and Media in Metairie hosted a Christmas party for children Dec. 8. Children got to dress in costume while the Christmas story was read, and they received a slice of birthday cake!

Jesuit Father Peter Callery has put much thought into the sacraments. He believes that Catholics should not just go through the motions or see the sacraments performed as rituals only. “They are meant to be lived out every day,” Father Callery said.

I don’t know if you are like me, but when I go on a trip, I spend hours online looking at pictures of potential hotels. My search often mimics that of Goldilocks venturing into the house of the three bears:  “Too fancy”; “Too ratty”; “Ahh, just right.” Ultimately, I have to set out to my destination on the wings of faith, hoping that the online pictures presented an accurate portrayal of the hotel.

Fourteen years ago, Greg and Julie Alexander had two children, separate lives and no hope for their marriage. Today, they have seven children, two grandchildren, a deep love for each other and a ministry that provides nothing but hope for the sacrament of marriage.

The Rev. M. Martin Van Der Werff Burse recently received a gift of $55,000, the archdiocesan Vocation Office reported. A seminary burse is a sum of money that is invested, and the interest is used in perpetuity to help pay the cost of educating young men to the priesthood.

WASHINGTON (CNS) –  The Supreme Court will take up in the spring two cases over the constitutionality of same-sex marriage. In orders issued Dec. 7, the court agreed to hear a case over California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage, and one out of New York over the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines a marriage as being between one man and one woman.

Deadline: Submissions due Thursday (10 days before each issue) calendar@clarionherald.org (504) area coode unless noted Dec. 16-31 PARISHES BLESSED FRANCIS X. SEELOS, free concert of Christmas favorites featuring harpist Rachel Van Voorhees, Dec. 16, 4 p.m., 3037 Dauphine St., New Orleans.

Friend will be missed New Orleans When I first heard of Msgr. Kern’s passing, tears just flowed down my cheeks. Then, I smiled to myself and thought of all the beauty, grace and endless love that Msgr.

It is here. The season of Advent is upon us. Now is the time when we wait with joyful expectation for the coming of Christ our King. When we typically think of waiting, joy is likely not the first thing to come to mind.

Holy Cross School placed first for team exhibit and interview and second in the BEST award category at “South’s BEST (Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology),” a regional robotics competition for middle and high school students held Dec. 1-2 at Auburn University.

On the night of Nov. 17, CYO members from St. Francis Xavier and St. Angela Merici parishes slept on a sheet of cardboard or in boxes in the yard outside the former St. Francis Xavier Church on Metairie Road.

Total Community Action (TCA) provided an opportunity for me to attend the Children’s Defense Fund Louisiana (CDF) Youth Summit Oct. 18 in Baton Rouge as a youth activist. I was ecstatic about the invitation and the chance to listen to a panel of my peers talk about policies and structures that affect our youth.

It was payback week for Brother Martin’s basketball team, and the 49th Newman Invitational Tournament was  the Crusaders’ venue for revenge. The Crusaders handed both Newman, which had beaten them in the CYO Tournament’s championship game a week earlier, and East Jefferson their first setbacks of the season during the five-night tournament.

Thirty-nine years later, it is still the greatest college football game ever played. But at 4 o’clock on Dec. 31, 1973, I had additional worries. Could we get to Tulane Stadium? A heavy line of thunderstorms rolled in the metro area.

Jay Roth and his Archbishop Rummel football team returned to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome one day after winning the 2012 State Farm Prep Classic’s Class 5A championship. That Sunday afternoon encore was made necessary when Rummel won its first football championship in 24 years of playoff competition by handily defeating Barbe of Lake Charles, 35-14.