Category: Learn & Live the Faith

How the West was Really Won
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How the West was Really Won

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by on Dec 12, 2012 in Columnists, Featured, History, MyChurchParish.com, On TV and Movies
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On December 9, 1531, a poor and humble man from a remote village, some fourteen miles outside of present-day Mexico City, had a miraculous encounter with a mysterious lady and the Americas would never be the same. That peasant was Juan Diego, and the mysterious lady that he encountered was none other than she whom […]

Big Words for Big Things
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Big Words for Big Things

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by on Dec 12, 2012 in Featured, Live in Christ
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It has been an entire year since the new changes in the English translation of the language used in the Sacred Liturgy which were introduced to the Church in America on the First Sunday of Advent in 2011. By most accounts it has been a success, but not without some criticism. One example was a […]

Who Do We Need to Make Room For in Our Inn?
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Who Do We Need to Make Room For in Our Inn?

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by on Dec 10, 2012 in Featured, Live in Christ, Women
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Our pastor shared this story at Mass on Sunday: As many parishes do at Christmas time, a parish in New York was having a pageant acting out the Nativity story. A little boy named Tom was taking part. He was mentally disabled, but was very excited to be in the pageant. He was playing an […]

Second Week of Advent: B.I.B.L.E. - Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth
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Second Week of Advent: B.I.B.L.E. – Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth

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by on Dec 10, 2012 in Catechesis, Columnists, Featured
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In 1979 I received my First Communion and, as a communion gift, my first Bible, The Illustrated Children’s Bible.  I cherished this present and the stories never left my memory, even after I lost the Bible, many years ago. The Word of God is eternal and omnipresent; it remains imprinted on our souls from our […]

Reflections for Sunday, December 16, 2012
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Reflections for Sunday, December 16, 2012

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by on Dec 10, 2012 in Catechesis, Featured, Sunday Reflections
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Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Zephaniah 3:14-18; (Psalm) Isaiah 12:2-6; Philippians 4:4-7; Luke 3:10-18) Advent, A Time of Thanksgiving and Rejoicing “The peace of God … will guard your hearts.” (Philippians 4:7) There was once a little town that was being harassed and pillaged by marauders. Good families were not able to […]

The Duty of the Moment
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The Duty of the Moment

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by on Dec 10, 2012 in Featured, Live in Christ, Parenting
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“Doing the duty of the moment means focusing our whole person – heart, soul, body, emotions, intellect, memory, imagination – on the job at hand!  The duty of the moment done for God is glamorous, exciting, wondrous…..” Catherine Doherty, Grace In Every Season, Madonna House Publications, Combermere, Ontario Many years ago, when I was a […]

Advent: A Season of Hope
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Advent: A Season of Hope

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by on Dec 09, 2012 in Catechesis, Columnists, Featured, Sunday Reflections
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Second Sunday of Advent Faith, hope, and love.  St. Paul, in I Corinthians 13:13, say these three are the bottom line.  They are called the theological virtues, the qualities that make us most like God. We hear plenty about faith and love.  But when is the last time you heard a rousing homily on hope?  […]

The Three Sacrifices of Giving
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The Three Sacrifices of Giving

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by on Dec 06, 2012 in Featured, Live in Christ, Women
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“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” drawls Stella in Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire.” And it’s particularly true if you have a large family. Strangers as well as friends often provide our large family with their extras – a wonderful, win-win redistribution which helps level our budget shortfalls. But true giving […]

Reflections for Sunday, December 9, 2012
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Reflections for Sunday, December 9, 2012

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by on Dec 05, 2012 in Catechesis, Sunday Reflections
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Meditation and Questions for Reflection or Group Discussion (Baruch 5:1-9; Psalm 126:1-6 ; Philippians 1:4-6,8-11; Luke 3:1-6) Advent, A Time to Allow God’s Word to Transform You “A voice of one crying out in the desert.” (Luke 3:4) Tiberius. Pilate. Herod. Philip. Lysanias. Annas. Caiaphas. These men ruled the secular and religious worlds at the […]

Loving the Forgotten Ones
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Loving the Forgotten Ones

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by on Dec 05, 2012 in Featured, Health & Fitness, Live in Christ
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This week, M expressed a very clear desire to commit suicide, including the method of ending life.  Racked with pain, deteriorating health, loneliness and a lack of familial, spiritual and friendly support, M has had enough of living. Statistics in Canada estimate that the number of depressed, suicidal elderly people is 14%.  (Canadian Mental Health […]

Apparitions at Holy Love Ministries Revisited
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Apparitions at Holy Love Ministries Revisited

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by on Dec 04, 2012 in Featured, Live in Christ
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A few years ago, I first wrote about Holy Love Ministries, the 83-acre site of Maranatha Spring in Ohio. People have been going to this place since the early 1990‘s, drawn by founder Maureen Sweeney-Kyle’s claim that Jesus and the Blessed Virgin Mary and a host of saints are appearing to her with messages. On the surface, […]

The Tender Touch of God
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The Tender Touch of God

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by on Dec 04, 2012 in Featured, Live in Christ, Parenting
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This week Tripp Curtis, the recently bereaved husband of “Mommy Life” blogger and author Barbara Curtis, posted a short article about his wife that read in part: Barbara told how “seeing my children experience a happy childhood was the next best thing to having one myself.” She wished to “receive that kind of love.… Is […]

A Trifecta of Dishonesty
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A Trifecta of Dishonesty

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by on Dec 03, 2012 in Apologetics, Columnists, Featured
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In the words of Billy Joel’s 1979 hit ballad, “Honesty,” “Honesty is such a lonely word; everyone is so untrue.” How much more true do those words ring today, some three decades later? To wit, I’d like to touch on three examples of rank dishonesty: one spiritual, one intellectual, and one liturgical. Spiritual Dishonesty In […]

First Week of Advent: From the Incarnation to the Parousia
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First Week of Advent: From the Incarnation to the Parousia

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by on Dec 03, 2012 in Catechesis, Columnists, Featured
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Wednesday, November 21.  I drove eleven hours through the Megalopolis of Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City.  It was the day before Thanksgiving, the busiest traveling day of the year in the U.S.  Was I crazy?  Maybe, but a daylong drive through stop-and-go traffic was what I wanted to help prepare for Advent.  […]

<em>Liberty, the God that Failed</em>: Interview with the Author, Christopher Ferrara
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Liberty, the God that Failed: Interview with the Author, Christopher Ferrara

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by on Dec 03, 2012 in Featured, Government & Politics, History, Law & Justice, On Books
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This interview with Christopher Ferrara, Catholic author and founder of the American Catholic Lawyers Association, was conducted by Dr. John C. Rao, November 11, 2012. JR: Let’s begin, appropriately enough, with your title, [Liberty, the God That Failed: Policing the Sacred and Constructing the Myths of the Secular State, from Locke to Obama] and the […]

Letting God Find You
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Letting God Find You

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by on Dec 03, 2012 in Columnists, Featured, Health & Fitness, Live in Christ
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Before my feet touched the floor on January 1st, 2012, I offered a simple prayer: Please Lord, before the year is over, find me where you want me to be. Up to that point, I had been suffering from a decades-long chronic condition and although I imagined health in my future, that morning I offered every […]

Happy New Year!
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Happy New Year!

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by on Dec 02, 2012 in Columnists, Featured, Live in Christ
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Today, we celebrate a New Year’s Day in the Catholic Church. Not unlike the secular New Year’s Day we celebrate in the secular world, the First Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the new liturgical year. It also marks our time of longing and anticipation for the coming of the Christ Child on Christmas […]

Pope Decrees: Catholic Charities Must Act in Accordance With Catholic Teaching
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Pope Decrees: Catholic Charities Must Act in Accordance With Catholic Teaching

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by on Dec 02, 2012 in Featured, Those in Need
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In a surprise move, Pope Benedict XVI this morning issued a formal legislative document instructing Catholic charitable organisations that they must act in complete compliance with Catholic teaching. The Vatican rumour mill failed to predict the appearance today of the pope’s Motu Proprio, a special letter written and promulgated on Pope Benedict’s personal initiative, that lays out […]

Catholic Politics
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Catholic Politics

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by on Dec 01, 2012 in Catechesis, Columnists, Featured, Government & Politics
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The cardinal looked grim. “This is the situation now,” he said. “One political party is dangerous and the other is stupid.” Since that was said in a private chat, it wouldn’t be fair for me to name the speaker. But his comment expresses sentiments that probably are widely shared in the American hierarchy today, as […]

Theology on the Tea Cups
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Theology on the Tea Cups

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by on Nov 30, 2012 in Catechesis, Featured
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“Forget about man-made religion, man!  Do you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?” It is likely that we’ve all been on at least one side of that question, possibly both.  Before leaving Assemblies of God, I was one of the loudest and proudest when it came to purposefully shearing off anything that I decided […]

Respecting Your Mental Powers
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Respecting Your Mental Powers

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by on Nov 28, 2012 in Apologetics, Featured
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“All men by nature desire to know.” So Aristotle begins his Metaphysics. We desire to know what is and we desire to know it truly and this desire is “by nature” — as every parent of a miniature metaphysician can testify, for “what?” and “why?” are the words his child’s mind lives by from morning to […]

On Writing in Dark Times
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On Writing in Dark Times

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by on Nov 28, 2012 in Featured, Live in Christ, The Social Order
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In a (very) recent episode of the confessional Lutheran podcast “Issues, Etc.,” Matt Harrison, interviewing Allan Carlson, reflected on the meaning of the recent election for social conservatives. I’m sure we’ve all been immersed in this sort of thinking, this past week or so: Harrison said that “while there’s not an inevitability to this, we may […]

Advent: A Time to Prepare for the Lord’s Coming
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Advent: A Time to Prepare for the Lord’s Coming

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by on Nov 28, 2012 in Featured, Live in Christ, Men
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He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. But to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God, to those who believe in […]

A Spoonful of Grace
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A Spoonful of Grace

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by on Nov 27, 2012 in Apologetics, Featured
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The little boy is playing happily on the kitchen floor. Mommy is busy above, at the counter, far over his head. Things are being retrieved from the cupboards and fridge, but the little boy pays scant attention for he has lately become fascinated with tracing the design on the vinyl floor with his toy car. […]