Advent Reflections

EWTN “In the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord …” (Isaiah 40:3). In this series, priests and deacons help viewers get ready for Christmas by supplying meditation topics, prayers and readings from sacred Scripture. Re-airs 5:30pm Fridays.
 

To Catch a Comet

PBS This new documentary follows the European Space Agency’s Rosetta spacecraft from its design, assembly, testing and 2004 launch to its 10-year, 4 million-mile voyage of discovery to Mars and the asteroid belt, the depositing of its Philae Lander on the Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in November 2014 and its own landing on that comet this past September.
 

A Charlie Brown Christmas

ABC A Christmas-season TV staple since its debut in 1965, this animated special stars Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic strip characters. The show’s highlight is when Linus cheers up Charlie Brown by telling him the true meaning of Christmas, reciting St. Luke 2:8-14.
 

EWTN Bookmark

EWTN Host Doug Keck’s guest is Ronald M. Clancy, whose Best-Loved Christmas Carols (2000) was inspired by the beauty of a choir’s carols when he was a boy at a Catholic orphanage in Philadelphia.
 

Father Spitzer’s Universe

EWTN Jesuit Father Robert Spitzer’s topic is “How Did Jesus Establish the Church as a Primacy of Peter?” Re-airs 10pm Thursday and midnight Friday.
 

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

EWTN At 8am, the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word will celebrate Mass on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception (re-airs 6:30pm). In Homage to the Immaculate Conception at 10am, Pope Francis will preside at the traditional salute to the Blessed Virgin Mary at Rome’s Piazza di Spagna. At noon, Solemn Mass will be celebrated in Washington, D.C., at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (re-airs midnight).
 

Christmas at Belmont

PBS At Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, Grammy-winning songstress Kathy Mattea hosts almost 700 student musicians, the Belmont School of Music faculty and the Nashville Children’s Choir as they perform Christmas carols, classical works and “seasonal” favorites. Original broadcast: December 2015.
 

Crossing the Goal: On the Road — 11th Annual Memphis Men’s Morning of Spirituality

EWTN The team — Danny Abramowicz, Peter Herbeck, Curtis Martin and Brian Patrick — will join some 1,200 other men in prayer to Jesus and fidelity to the Catholic Church.  Re-airs 10pm Saturday and 1pm Tuesday.
 

It’s a Wonderful Life

NBC Catholic director Frank Capra (1897-1991) helmed this 1946 drama classic in which an angel in the guise of a kindly human helps a desperate man (Jimmy Stewart) by showing him what his life means to his community and the family and friends who love him.

Dan Engler writes from
Santa Barbara, California.