"The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth," this Sunday's gospel says of the mission of John the Baptist. The long and difficult war in Afghanistan took another turn Tuesday with President Barack Obama's speech to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

This Sunday's reading from the Book of the Prophet Baruch encourages Jerusalem to take off its "robe of mourning . . ." and "put on the splendor of glory . . . ." That splendor should be divided between Israel and a new state of Palestine in a draft of a European Union (EU) proposal for a "final settlement" between the two parties. An official call for dividing the city is expected from the EU next week. 

Saint Paul prays that that the Philippians "may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ" in this Sunday's second reading. Commentators are blaming apathy and low turnout among liberal-minded Swiss voters for the surprising approval over the weekend of a ban on building minarets on Muslim houses of worship.

Merchants beleaguered by a long year of recession are hoping the holiday season will, in the words of the psalmist, "restore again our fortunes." While sales the day after Thanksgiving were up only slightly from a year ago ...

"What you do from this day forward will write, or rewrite, the story of AIDS across Africa."

In the midst of a global economic recession, an international business group said that shoplifting has increased 6 percent, at a cost to merchants of almost $115 billion.