Matt, Ken, and Kenny continue their discussion about one of the most important questions a Christian can ask: what is the Gospel? Former Baptist pastor Ken Hensley shares seven key realizations that helped him understand that the Reformation doctrine of salvation by “faith alone” wasn’t supported by the testimony of the Scriptures.

Christmas is the season of pondering the paradox of the Incarnation itself. What was found in the stable at Bethlehem was far greater than everything outside. This is no mere poetic exaggeration. The infinite God assumed a finite human nature. What was in this child, no bigger than a breadbox at first but soon to grow in wisdom and stature...

She has become ubiquitous on social media platforms: the middle class woman who is nearly spitting with unsuppressed rage and seemingly gleeful that she has the means to showcase it. The woman is one of an uncountable number who display septum rings and tattoos as they set their camera phones to “record” and then deliver spit-inflected diatribes, or scream in indignation...

John the Baptist tells us that he has been told that Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God, and that we can expect the Holy Spirit. In other words, at the Father’s command we become one with the Son with the Spirit, and enter into the life of the Trinity. This changes everything for Christians...

Feast date: Jan 23

St. Ildephonsus was the Archbishop of Toledo, and died 23 January, 667. He was born of a distinguished family and was the nephew of St. Eugenius, his predecessor in the See of Toledo. At an early age, despite the determined opposition of his father, he embraced the monastic life in the monastery of Agli, near Toledo. He was ordained a deacon, around the year 630. He was called by King Reccesvinth, near the end of 657 to fill the archiepiscopal throne of Toledo, where he governed the Church of Toledo for just over nine years and was buried in the Basilica of Saint Leocadia.

Ildephonsus had a strong devotion to the Blessd Mother, and it is said that  one day he was praying before the relics of Saint Leocadia, when the martyr arose from her tomb and thanked the saint for the devotion he showed towards the Mother of God. It was also related that on another occasion the Blessed Virgin appeared to him in person and presented him with a priestly vestment, to reward him for his zeal in honoring her.

The literary work of Ildephonsus is more widely known than the details of his life, and merits for him a distinguished place in the role of Spanish writers.

Feast date: Jan 23

St. Marianne Cope was born in western Germany in 1838. She entered religious life in Syracuse, N.Y. in 1862. She served as a teacher and principal in several schools in the state and established two of the first hospitals in the central New York area: St. Elizabeth Hospital in Utica and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse.

In 1883, Mother Marianne’s community was the only one of fifty to respond positively to an emissary from Hawaii who requested Catholic sisters to provide health care on the Hawaiian Islands, especially to those with leprosy.

Over the next five years, St. Marianne set up a system of long-term education and care for her patients.

She ministered to patients at Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai. Her time of service overlapped with the last years of St. Damien of Molokai, a priest who served victims of Hansen’s disease and himself died of leprosy.

St. Marianne promised her sisters that none of them would ever contract the disease. To this day, no sister has. Her care earned her the affectionate title “beloved mother of the outcasts.”

She died in 1918 and was beatified on May 14, 2005 and canonized on October 21, 2012, both by Pope Benedict XVI.

"At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage and enthusiasm," Pope Benedict XVI said in his homily during the Mass for her canonization. "She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved Saint Francis."

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