On a hot summer day the kids and I were headed to the grocery store. Our house doesn’t have air conditioning and it gets hot—the thermometer in the living room read 85 yesterday—at 9 PM!—so when we’re in the car we try to make up for it. We had the air conditioner cranked up as […]
The most powerful countries and institutions in the world promoting homosexual “rights” are finding resistance even where gay activists thought the battle had been won. The goal of normalizing same-sex relations through legislation is hitting roadblocks in legislatures, courts, and among people around the globe. While activists have succeeded in getting western societies to require […]
My mother and stepfather were recently privy to a conversation between myself and a good female friend. Both of us are first time mothers navigating the trials and tribulations of our sons’ first years. Stealing a few minutes to enjoy some coffee and dessert while our husbands minded the boys in the next room, I […]
IT was the happiness of this Saint to receive from his cradle the strongest impressions of piety by the example and care of his illustrious and holy parents. He was born at Chateau-neuf, in the territory of Valence in present day France, in 1053. His father, Odilo, who served his country in an honorable post […]
Marlise Munoz collapsed in November 2013 from a blood clot in her lungs while pregnant with her second child. She was taken to John Peter Smith Hospital in Ft. Worth, Texas, a public hospital operated by the Tarrant County Hospital District, where she was put on life support. Media reports said that in the weeks […]
The Epiphany of the Lord Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Isaiah 60:1-6; Psalm 72:1-2,7-8,10-13; Ephesians 3:2-3,5-6; Matthew 2:1-12) View NAB Reading at USCCB.org Giving our Hearts to the Lord They opened their treasures and offered him gifts. (Matthew 2:11) What’s the best gift you have received this Christmas? How about the best […]
Today in many intellectual circles, Christians are viewed with condescension and derision. We are seen as naïve simpletons who lack the courage to accept the world at face value. We insist on weaving elaborate theologies and worshiping a God who is invisible because we are too weak to cope with the fact that existence is […]
“Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.” – Thomas Jefferson A recent video by Fr. Robert Barron, “Gay Marriage and the Breakdown of Moral Argument,” called to mind just how right Jefferson was. In his commentary, Fr. Barron said: In his great text, After Virtue, the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre […]
In my last column, we began covering the sacrament of confession by stating that modern Catholicism suffers from a crisis of the confessional. Here on this site, on social media and in emails, readers have shared their thoughts with me on why this is so. According to the wisdom of the crowds, the biggest problem […]
Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Acts 5:27-32,40-41; Psalm 30:2,4-6,11-13; Revelation 5:11-14; John 21:1-19) Experiencing the Grace of Repentance and the Grace of the Holy Spirit We must obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:29) Is this the same Peter who had denied that he even knew Jesus? Doesn’t it take years—if ever—for […]
Born in Aquino, Italy, in 1225, at “the Roccasecca, the castle whose name means ‘dry rock or fortress’”, Saint Thomas Aquinas is thought to have been “one of the most powerful thinkers in the history of Western civilization”.[i] In 1231, Thomas was sent by his parents to the Benedictine abbey of Monte Cassino, “in the […]
Warriors, monks, Christians: the Knights Templar were all these things, but according to the pope they were also heretics. These knights for Christ had once been some of the most respected people in Europe and known as models of Christian virtue. But as the world began changing they incurred the wrath of kings and priests […]
In most Catholic communities, “discernment” is a buzz word. Normally when I hear this word, my mind automatically connects it with another word: vocation. To be honest, this word used to frighten me. Every time I would hear the word at Mass or at another gathering, anxiety would soon follow. The following thoughts would stream […]
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The Mass: The Glory, the Mystery, the Tradition by Cardinal Wuerl, the Archbishop of Washington D.C. and Mike Aquilina is a well-written and concise book about the Holy Mass. Though it was written to coincide with the implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal last year, I think it can also be a great tool for […]
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the story of a boy who loses his father in the Twin Towers on 9/11. Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) seems to have Asperger’s syndrome, and his dad (Tom Hanks) was the only one who really understood his brainy but socially awkward and phobia-ridden son. Oskar’s relationship with his mother […]
Thanks to support from Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), a new diocesan center has opened in Novosibirsk, Siberia. The center is also a memorial to martyr Bishop Alexander Chira (pictured left). The Apostolic Nuncio to Russia, Archbishop Ivan Jurkovitch, Bishop Joseph Werth of Novosibirsk as well as the Catholic Bishops of […]
[U]ntil we account for the knowledge which an infant has of his mother . . ., what reason have we to take exception at the doctrine, as strange and difficult, that in the dictate of conscience, without previous experiences or analogical reasoning, he is able gradually to perceive the voice, or the echoes of the […]
Remigius, or Remi, was born of noble and pious parents. At the age of twenty-two, in spite of the canons and of his own reluctance, he was acclaimed Archbishop of Rheims. He was unusually tall, his face impressed with blended majesty and serenity, his bearing gentle, humble, and retiring. He was also learned and eloquent, […]
