Category: Learn & Live the Faith

The Law of Human Nature Still Exists
1

The Law of Human Nature Still Exists

by

by on Apr 15, 2015 in Catechesis, Cloning, Embryo Research & Genetics, Contraception & Abortion, Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide, Featured
Print This Article

Is there anything so wicked as a man trying to silence his conscience?  It is a willful act that happens in stages: Bit by bit, incident by incident, rationalization by rationalization, the voice of a man’s conscience can be stifled—that still small voice within him eventually becomes fainter, until his heart turns to stone and […]

Reflections for Sunday, April 19, 2015
0

Reflections for Sunday, April 19, 2015

by

by on Apr 15, 2015 in Featured, Live in Christ, Sunday Reflections, Uncategorized
Print This Article

Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion Mass Readings: 1st Reading: Acts 3:13-15, 17-19 2nd Reading: 1 John 2:1-5 Responsorial: Psalm 4:2, 4, 7-9 Gospel: Luke 24:35-48 Opening Our Minds and Hearts to God’s Glorious Plan He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:45) We all know what it feels like when […]

Would You Lay Down Your Life for Them?
0

Would You Lay Down Your Life for Them?

by

by on Apr 14, 2015 in Evangelization, Featured, Live in Christ
Print This Article

I have more than 1,100 friends on Facebook. Are they all really my friends? Fair question. My wife and children frequently voice their doubts that I even know that many people, much less can call that many people friends. My family has challenged me with this: “How many of those people, if they died, would […]

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel
0

Front Row With Francis: The Passion of Children

by

by on Apr 14, 2015 in Catechesis, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith, The Shepherd's Voice
Print This Article

Divorce, malnutrition, poverty. Children “are the first victims.” For all the talk about being pro-life and pro-family, and for all that our post-Protestant nation worships children, are we really aware of the damage done to children by sin and injustice? Just as Christ suffered as the son of the Father, and just as Christians give […]

How a Parish Can Attract Traditionalists
5

How a Parish Can Attract Traditionalists

by

by on Apr 14, 2015 in Catechesis, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith
Print This Article

Dear William, When I shared your previous letter on Facebook, I referred to the contents as “interesting.”  In it, you expressed a desire that over time, the need for the Extraordinary Form would lessen, and that you hope traditionalists would begin to frequent a better done Ordinary Form liturgy.  This is a difficult discussion, but I’d like […]

Divine Mercy: Drink it Up
1

Divine Mercy: Drink it Up

by

by on Apr 12, 2015 in Columnists, Featured, Live in Christ
Print This Article

At the Abbey of Gethsemane in New Haven, Kentucky, the bell tower of the monastery chimed at three a.m. like Big Ben, shaking me from my bed. A seismic shift. What’s up with these monks? Why do they pray so early? Because it’s their charism, the horarium of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict […]

Who is Jesus?
1

Who is Jesus?

by

by on Apr 10, 2015 in Evangelization, Featured, Live in Christ
Print This Article

At the beginning of Lent our pastor gave everyone in our parish some homework to do. He asked us to read the Gospel of Mark. He wanted us to first just read through the entire gospel once and then to go back and read it a second time with a particular purpose in mind. He […]

Why Me, Lord? A Meditation
2

Why Me, Lord? A Meditation

by

by on Apr 10, 2015 in Evangelization, Featured, Live in Christ
Print This Article

Why, Lord, did you give me this father, this mother, this brother, this sister, this son, this daughter, this relative, this in-law, this person, this acquaintance, this alleged friend? Why did you do this to me? Why did you put them in my life? Why did you put me in their lives? I do not […]

The "Orthodox Practice" on Divorce and Communion, Part II
5

The “Orthodox Practice” on Divorce and Communion, Part II

by

by on Apr 09, 2015 in Catechesis, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith, Marriage
Print This Article

At the close of the Extraordinary Synod of Catholic Bishops last October, the Synod’s Final Report ( the “Lineamenta”) included a questionnaire on pastoral practices on family issues.   Among the questions was number 38.  It opened with the following premise: “With regard to the divorced and remarried, pastoral practice concerning the sacraments needs to be […]

Reflections for Sunday, April 12, 2015
0

Reflections for Sunday, April 12, 2015

by

by on Apr 08, 2015 in Catechesis, Church Street, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith, Sunday Reflections
Print This Article

Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion Mass Readings: 1st Reading: Acts 4:32-35 2nd Reading: 1 John 5:1-6 Responsorial: Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24 Gospel: John 20:19-31 Allowing the Word of God to Deepen Our Faith These are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ. (John 20:31) The Gospel writers […]

<em>The Second Greatest Story Ever Told</em>
0

The Second Greatest Story Ever Told

by

by on Apr 08, 2015 in Catechesis, Featured, On Books
Print This Article

As one might expect, the first greatest story ever told is that of God creating the world and then sending His son to save us from our sins. Throughout human history, God has wanted His people to know Him, to love Him, and to Trust Him, but due to sin, this has not been an […]

Our God is a Mighty God
0

Our God is a Mighty God

by

by on Apr 07, 2015 in Evangelization, Featured, Live in Christ
Print This Article

I love silence. I crave it sometimes, especially in a world that seems filled with noise 24/7. Radios and TVs, alarm clocks and iPods, CD players and Youtube, telephones and cell phones and people talking-talking-talking wherever we go. It can be a challenge to hear God’s voice over all of that noise. We might try […]

“Save Yourselves from this Corrupt Generation” (Acts 2:40)
0

“Save Yourselves from this Corrupt Generation” (Acts 2:40)

by

by on Apr 07, 2015 in Catechesis, Featured, Live in Christ
Print This Article

This verse in the Book of Acts brings an image to my mind of a street activist holding a sign with these words scrawled across it — a scenario many would turn away from. But those who heard St. Peter’s speech at Pentecost were “cut to the heart by it,” and that day three thousand were baptized […]

Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, The Joy of the Gospel
2

Front Row With Francis: An Easter People on Easter Monday

by

by on Apr 06, 2015 in Catechesis, Featured, Learn & Live the Faith, The Shepherd's Voice
Print This Article

The overriding sentiment which prevails at my house and in my heart each Easter Monday is the same.  It is finished.  The long 40 days of Lenten fasting, prayer and penance are completed.  The late nights of the Triduum liturgies are over.  Crumbs of the traditional Italian Easter bread and a handful of neon colored […]

Dawn of the Living Dead
0

Dawn of the Living Dead

by

by on Apr 05, 2015 in Columnists, Evangelization, Featured
Print This Article

Mary Magdalene wept. Inconsolable. Bereft. Her mind raced. What’s going on here? she thought. I think I need to go lie down, put a warm towel across my forehead and drink a cup of herbal tea. Too much, too soon, too fast, and I can’t wrap my mind around it. They say it is darkest […]

Can It Be?
16

Can It Be?

by

by on Apr 04, 2015 in Apologetics, Featured
Print This Article

I celebrate my 21st Easter this year, 2015. For the first 38 years of my life I did not celebrate Easter because I was one of Jehovah’s Witnesses, a pseudo-Christian group with a very strange economy of salvation. It is not easy to describe life in a cult like Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is very dark. Even […]

Waterboy, Where are You Hiding?
6

Waterboy, Where are You Hiding?

by

by on Apr 03, 2015 in Columnists, Featured, History, Live in Christ
Print This Article

John Mark was only a boy when he met Jesus. His mother Mary, a prominent member of the seventy disciples who followed Jesus throughout his three-year ministry, opened her home to the Lord and his Apostles. In the upper room of Mary’s house they held the Last Supper. Six weeks later the Apostles and Mary […]

Do Small Things with Great Love
0

Do Small Things with Great Love

by

by on Apr 03, 2015 in Evangelization, Featured, Live in Christ
Print This Article

The older I get, the more time I spend enduring medical exams and “procedures.” Never willing to waste time, I often pray in my moments alone while waiting. I’m also fond of chatting up and observing people. That can provide flashes of grace. Recently, I was laying on a hospital bed in expectation of being […]

The Cross is for Wretches Like Me
0

The Cross is for Wretches Like Me

by

by on Apr 03, 2015 in Featured, Live in Christ, MyChurchParish.com
Print This Article

In his remarkably profound book, Lift Up You Heart, Bishop Fulton Sheen said, “The Cross is the most inescapable reality of life. If we will not accept it outside of ourselves, to pardon us and to heal, then we will have it inside, as frustration and despair.” The life changing reality of Calvary has been […]

Flight Night
0

Flight Night

by

by on Apr 02, 2015 in Columnists, Featured, Live in Christ
Print This Article

There are two kinds of stories. Someone goes on a journey. A stranger comes to town. Often these storytelling techniques occur simultaneously. For instance: years ago, the kind words of a Cuban rosary warrior named Rosemary Sharpe spurred me to begin anew my journey to the priesthood. One morning I was praying in the chapel […]

His Flesh is True Food
0

His Flesh is True Food

by

by on Apr 02, 2015 in Apologetics, Catechesis, Evangelization, Featured, History
Print This Article

“Take and eat; this is my body… Drink from [the cup], all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant…” (Matthew 26:26-27). These are Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, on the first “Holy Thursday,” as he offered to his apostles what appeared to be bread and wine. As Catholics, we believe that Jesus […]

Unexpected
0

Unexpected

by

by on Apr 02, 2015 in Disability, Sickness & Suffering, Featured, Live in Christ
Print This Article

Our third son married his beloved fianceé just over 2 weeks ago. What a beautiful day it was. Everything was perfect. Family and friends were in town from both sides, great jubilation saturated the air. The weeks leading up to the wedding were filled with expectation and busyness. I remember a prayer I had raised […]

Holy Week, Choice and the Problem of Evil and Sin
0

Holy Week, Choice and the Problem of Evil and Sin

by

by on Apr 02, 2015 in Contraception & Abortion, Euthanasia & Assisted Suicide, Featured, Live in Christ
Print This Article

We are in Holy Week 2015, so it is most appropriate to consider the problem of evil and sin. The sacrificial Passion, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ was to settle with God the problem of human sin and evil. I have often heard the question, “If there is a God, why does he permit […]

"The Orthodox Practice" on Divorce and Communion: Part I
0

“The Orthodox Practice” on Divorce and Communion: Part I

by

by on Apr 02, 2015 in Catechesis, Featured, Marriage
Print This Article

At the close of the Extraordinary Synod of Catholic Bishops last October, the Synod’s Final Report ( the “Lineamenta”) included a questionnaire on pastoral practices on family issues. Among the questions was number 38, which opened with the following premise: “With regard to the divorced and remarried, pastoral practice concerning the sacraments needs to be […]