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:…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
Jenna Marie Cooper Q: I have a question on discernment of private revelations. I don’t mean big ones like Medjugorje, etc., but individuals who say they ‘have had a word from the Lord’. Couldn’t this be just their own opinion interpreted as God talking? A: Yes, this is a concern. With these kinds of…
There are different ways of being excluded in life. Earlier this year, one of my older brothers died. By every indication he had lived an exemplary life, one lived mainly for others. He died much loved by everyone who knew him. His was a life lived for family, Church, community and friends. Giving the homily…
Jem Sullivan 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time Is 45:1, 4-6 Ps 96:1, 3, 4-5, 7-8, 9-10 1 Thes 1:1-5b Mt 22:15-21 “I am the Lord, there is no other,” the prophet Isaiah tells us in simple, evocative words. God’s power is universal, loving, and mysterious. And all earthly power comes from God, as…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Ruadhán Jones