My prayers are with our new President and his family today. I am praying that God grant him wisdom and courage to lead this great nation and that God help him to meet the tests of these times, to heal the wounds caused by this pandemic, to ease our intense political and cultural divisions, and to bring people together with renewed dedication to America’s founding purposes, to be one nation under God committed to liberty and equality for all.

Reading I Heb 7:1-3, 15-17 Melchizedek, king of Salem and priest of God Most High, met Abraham as he returned from his defeat of the kings and blessed him . And Abraham apportioned to him a tenth of everything .

Reading I Heb 6:10-20 Brothers and sisters: God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love you have demonstrated for his name by having served and continuing to serve the holy ones. We earnestly desire each of you to demonstrate the same eagerness for the fulfillment of hope until the end, so that you may not become sluggish, but imitators of those who, through faith and patience, are inheriting the promises.

WASHINGTON—Catholics nationwide are preparing to pray 9 Days for Life , the annual pro-life novena beginning this year on January 21. New this year, dioceses across the country are live-streaming prayer events each day for the protection of human life.

Reading I Heb 5:1-10 Brothers and sisters: Every high priest is taken from among men and made their representative before God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and erring, for he himself is beset by weakness and so, for this reason, must make sin offerings for himself as well as for the people.

Reading I 1 Sm 3:3b-10, 19 Samuel was sleeping in the temple of the LORD where the ark of God was. The LORD called to Samuel, who answered, “Here I am.” Samuel ran to Eli and said, “Here I am. You called me.” “I did not call you, “  Eli said.

WASHINGTON —Following the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, and reports of an FBI bulletin warning of “armed protests” in state capitals and Washington, DC, in the coming week, including groups urging participants to “storm” state capitols and other government buildings and threatening “a huge uprising,” as well as reports of threats against lawmakers and their families, Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, urged peace.

Reading I Heb 4:12-16 The word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.

WASHINGTON – On Tuesday night, the Supreme Court of the United States granted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s request to reinstate its authority to enforce important health and safety requirements for mifepristone, a chemical abortion drug.

WASHINGTON—Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford and chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on International Justice and Peace, issued the following statement on the New START Treaty.

For much of the past year, America has been reckoning with the legacy of slavery and the persistence of racial injustice in our country. Sadly, it is still true that the “color of our skin” often matters more in our society than the “content of our character,” as Rev.

Reading I Heb 4:1-5, 11 Let us be on our guard while the promise of entering into his rest remains, that none of you seem to have failed. For in fact we have received the Good News just as our ancestors did.

Reading I Heb 3:7-14 The Holy Spirit says: Oh, that today you would hear his voice, “Harden not your hearts as at the rebellion in the day of testing in the desert, where your ancestors tested and tried me and saw my works for forty years.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Subcommittee on the Church in Latin America has announced January 23-24 as the weekend for the 2021 Collection for the Church in Latin America.