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Category: Your Faith
All Saints’ Day: History and traditions
This great feast is one of the Church’s most underappreciated, writes Paul Senz The author of the Letter to the Hebrews wrote, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies…
Cultural Catholicism: What it can and can’t bring to the party, or the battlefield
Jaymie Stuart Wolfe When we moved to New Orleans, my husband and I were surprised to see the depth of Catholic influence in the culture here. Southern Louisiana isn’t quite a Catholic Disney World, but sometimes it comes close. Local meteorologists provide weather predictions for “All Saints’ Day” by name. In March, over 50 Catholic…
Permitting ourselves enemies comes with rules, for God’s sake and ours
Elizabeth Scalia Since October 7, I have been trying to understand something incomprehensible. There is a lot that has happened since that bloody date that is incomprehensible, but I don’t mean the planned slaughter of civilians and innocent children – hatred gone mad and become inhumane is not completely incomprehensible, for we see it daily:…
What justifies prayers for the dead?
Jenna Marie Cooper Q: Praying for the dead: where can this be found in the Bible? I don’t want any reference to the Catechism, thanks. A: As you allude to in your question, many of the details regarding the Church’s teaching on Purgatory (and the utility and appropriateness of praying for the dead) is part…
The battle against ‘bad thoughts’
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Someone once quipped that we spend the first half of our lives struggling with the sixth commandment – Thou shalt not commit adultery – and the second half of our lives struggling with the fifth commandment – Thou shalt not kill! There’s a truth here worth examining. In the Catholicism I was raised there was…
The two greatest commandments
Deacon Greg Kandra Ex 22:20-26 Ps 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51 1 Thes 1:5c-10 Mt 22:34-40 Anyone who has spent time watching reruns of Law and Order knows the first rule of being a good witness in a courtroom: Never answer a question that you haven’t been asked. Stay on point. Don’t elaborate. Keep it…
Stewardship: Five keys to respond to Jesus’ call
Stewardship describes our whole relationship with God, writes Susan M. Erschen What is ‘stewardship’? Stewardship is perhaps one of the most misunderstood words in the Church today. Some people think it is all about money. Others think it means only time, talent and treasure. Some wonder if it is just another word for fundraising or…
The rosary is a mighty tool for evangelisation
SueAnn Howell ‘Unleash the Power of the Rosary’, a panel discussion hosted by Paradisus Dei and the Dominican friars of the Province of St Joseph, offered a lively discussion about the rosary as a powerful tool for evangelisation that connects people to Jesus through Mary and guides them on a journey to the centre of…
How an artist responds to senseless violence
Ruadhán Jones
The Pianist, about a Polish Jew’s experience of WWII, was a bit of a passion project for its Polish-Jewish director, Roman Polanski. Since coming out in 2002, it has been hailed as a classic. It stars Adrien Brody as pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman, a real-life Holocaust survivor who wrote a memoir also called The…