With all the recent talk of “the fiscal cliff,” it feels as though we are living in the age described in the reading from the Book of Isaiah this Sunday: “See, darkness covers the earth . . .

The Lord will protect “the afflicted,” the psalmist promises this Sunday. Women in India, outraged by a recent brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old student who died from injuries inflicted . . .

“Nations shall walk by your light,” the prophet Isaiah predicts in this Sunday’s hope-filled first reading. Many nations remain in the dark, however, when it comes to freedom of the press . . .

Tracking a bright star in the night sky, “magi from the east” arrive on the scene in this Sunday’s gospel to pay homage to the newborn King. Modern-day astronomers, using sophisticated instruments to track the same sort of celestial bodies . . .

“The same Christ who in Bethlehem, as a child, accepted the gifts of the Magi kings, is still the one to whom . . . whole peoples 'open their treasures.' ”

The United States has the highest rate of gun-ownership in the world—88.8 guns per 100 people—higher than both war-torn Yemen and Iraq.