TV PICKS

Dec. 6-19

By DANIEL J. ENGLER

All Times Eastern

 

TUESDAY, Dec. 8, 12:15am

Babes in Toyland

TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES This endearing 1934 musical fantasy stars Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as silly bumblers who must save Toyland. Advisory: Cartoonish bogeymen might scare very little ones.

 

TUESDAY, Dec. 8, live

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

EWTN At 8am, the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word will celebrate the Solemn Mass of the Immaculate Conception. At 10am, Pope Francis will conduct the Homage to the Immaculate Conception at Our Lady’s statue in Rome’s Piazza di Spagna. At noon will be the Solemn Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. (Re-airs midnight.)

 

TUESDAYS, Dec. 8, 15, 22, 6:30am

The Church and the Poor: Advent With the Missionaries of the Poor

EWTN While praying, evangelizing and assisting people in poverty, Father Richard Ho Lung’s missionaries exemplify the true spirit of Advent and Christmas.

 

WEDNESDAY, Dec. 9, 8pm

Nature: Snow Bears

PBS This dramatized story follows a polar bear on Norway’s Svalbard Islands, halfway between Norway and the North Pole, as she braves dangers to lead her twin cubs from their den to the Arctic Ocean to feed. Advisory: some animal predation. Re-air from 2018.

 

SATURDAY, Dec. 12

Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

EWTN At 3am live, Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez will celebrate Mass in Honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels. (Re-airs 6:30pm.) Live at noon in Rome, Pope Francis will celebrate Holy Mass on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. At 8pm, the 2010 docudrama 1531: A Story That Is Not Finished Yet relies on Antonio Valeriano’s 16th-century Nican Mopohua and other sources to portray Our Lady’s visits to St. Juan Diego and their lasting message to us today. (Re-airs 1:30am Monday.) Advisory: TV-PG.

 

SUNDAY, Dec. 13, 3am

Gerard Manley Hopkins, Priest-Poet

EWTN An English convert who became a Jesuit, Father Hopkins (1844-1889) placed his love for God and his Catholic faith at the center of his inventive poetry. Re-airs 8pm Friday.

 

SUNDAY, Dec. 13, 7:30pm

A Charlie Brown Christmas

PBS, PBS KIDS Little Linus explains the real meaning of Christmas in this beloved Peanuts animated special from 1965. Check local listings.

 

FRIDAY, Dec. 18, 1:15am

The Greatest Story Ever Told

TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES Based on convert Fulton Oursler’s 1949 work of the same title, this 1965 epic reverently relates the life of Christ. Among the all-star cast, Dorothy McGuire plays Mary and Max von Sydow portrays Jesus.

 

FRIDAY, Dec. 18, 6:30pm

An EWTN Holy Land Experience: Christmas

EWTN On the first Christmas, the shepherds “went in haste and found Mary and Joseph and the infant lying in the manger” (Luke 2:17). In the same spirit today, Fathers Joseph Mary and Mark Mary of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word visit Bethlehem’s holy places. Re-airs 1am.

 

Dan Engler writes from  Santa Barbara, California.