How many times have you — as a parent — sat in Mass and not heard a word the priest said because you were playing referee, peacekeeper, or bad cop in the pew? Since I can answer that question in the triple digits, I was thrilled to learn about the new DVD “Understanding Sunday Mass: A […]
What a privilege it was to serve Mass recently! It is something I have had the honor to do only 3 or 4 times in my adult life. For someone who just recently received his Medicare card, today was both a day for gratitude and for awe – gratitude for the gift of life and […]
Do you think you would benefit spiritually by spending thirty hours in prayer and meditation? Yeah, right, you are likely thinking. Where would I find time for that? I’m a very busy mother. Motherhood has its ironies. When we are pregnant and feel the need to “rest up,” sleep is often hard to come by. […]
It is the incoherence of the faithful and the pastors what undermines the witness of the Church. The apostles were simple people, but they were not afraid of anything or anyone. Those were the concepts at the center of Pope Francis’ homily during a Mass at the Church of Saint Paul Outside the Walls earlier […]
I would like to look at the matter from a different angle. I don’t really want to focus on a biblical rationale for every aspect of the sacrament of confession, not yet at least. Instead, I’d like for us to ponder why it is fitting that God chooses to use priests in the forgiveness of sins through the confessional.
I’m not wildly enthusiastic about showing my children pictures of me between 16 years old and 26, a full decade when I was the walking epitome of what not to be when you are young, single, and clueless about your Catholic faith. I didn’t exactly punk-out Duran Duran style in the eighties but I did […]
It was an astounding event. Truly remarkable, and clearly historical. Truth be told, I had never seen or experienced anything quite like it. It happened in one of the wealthiest and most powerful cities in the United States. Indeed, in the world. The setting was most fitting. A magnificent cathedral with giant stained glass windows […]
Today I have been reflecting on life and death. This past Saturday my oldest daughter married her best friend in front of God surrounded by family and friends. There was a joyous celebration after the nuptial Mass. My mother was under the weather but attended that Mass and came to the reception for a short […]
The Kingdom Hall of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is pretty close to my home, so Witnesses regularly visit our neighborhood. Their timing is very strategic, often just before holidays (which they don’t celebrate). Last fall, they came on Wednesday the day before Thanksgiving. I was putting something in my van, which was parked in the […]
It’s a matter of perception. Is the glass half full or half empty? Sometimes, all that is needed is a paradigm shift (pronounced “pair-a-dime”, not “pair-a-digum, just to be clear). In order to see our lives clearly, we need a bird’s-eye-view, but we’re stuck below, looking at life from the perspective of the worm. I […]
I wish I could say that I said prayers with my children every morning, prayed the rosary with them every day, and remembered nightly prayers at bedtime. I know I should have this routine, but time passes and before I know it each day, breakfast is served and cleared (okay, well not always cleared) school […]
It’s the card that embarrassed believers play when they choose their will over God’s.
The Church offers Gay people what she offers anyone else: the truth.
Father Michael Gaitley is quickly becoming known for promoting the Divine Mercy through every means possible. A priest of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception, he is director of the Association of Marian Helpers, which assists others in growing spiritually and raises funds for seminarians. He has two best-selling books in print and speaks at […]
Why did future saints like Blessed John Paul II go to confession on a weekly basis, sometimes even more frequently? Why did Archbishop Fulton Sheen recall with delight how the nuns whose confessions he heard did not spare their venial sins in the confessional, even though Church law only requires the confession of mortal sins?
The path of life is never really easy for any of us. Even for Christians, life is still a struggle. Jesus didn’t say “Believe in me so you can sit around doing nothing.” He said “Deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow me.” Then He proceeded to be tried and convicted, scourged, crowned […]
On a November morning before dawn my wife and I, and three other people on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, followed a Franciscan priest into the small edicule that surrounds Jesus’ tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The priest was going to say Mass, and he was pleased that we could […]
“The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer. This holds true both for the individual and for society. A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through “com-passion” is a cruel and inhuman society. […]
Isaiah the greatest of the prophets told the story of the Lord’s passion seven hundred years before the birth of the Christ. The prophecies of Isaiah are so clear that he even provided the world with the name of the Lord: Emmanuel — God is with us. As it is written: the suffering Messiah was […]
The end of November, 2011 saw the one-year anniversary of the “new” translation of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Liturgy. Like many others, I welcomed the new translation. When I began hearing some of its texts, I heard a more dignified, elevated language that spoke more directly to the heavenly Mysteries the Liturgy purports […]
Yet if the impulse is noble, then that means there’s a hint of truth to this. So why the emphasis on the smallest bits of liturgical discipline? Why nitpick? In short, we are trying to be like the just servants in the parable of the talents.
Recently, some friends queried me about the alleged apparitions known as “Rosa Mistica” (Mystical Rose). From their questions, it seemed to me that there is a growing interest in the English-speaking world in Rosa Mistica. I decided to devote myself to some research and to write an article summarizing the information. What follows is the […]
The present and former Pope met yesterday (March 24), in a moment without precedent. And the words which remain are the ones spoken by Pope Francis to Benedict: “We are brothers.” As Nicole Winfield put it in her comprehensive Associated Press dispatch article: “The two men in white embraced and showed one another the deference […]
Following is the whole text of Pope Francis’ homily during the Palm Sunday Mass that begins the Holy Week celebrations. The Holy Father commented on the World Youth Day that the entire Church celebrates today, asking that we live the faith “with a young heart”. The pontiff urged the youth to “tell the world that […]
