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Marriage, The Great Sacrament… The Gift Of Children And Their Rearing

February 3, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Marriage, The Great Sacrament… The Gift Of Children And Their Rearing

  By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM   Part 2   The behavior of many of the so-called millennials has been the object of disappointment to many a Catholic family. I believe, however, that, in certain cases, those youngsters are more victims than perpetrators of the crisis. This is the reason: Although parents are obliged to provide for the physical well-being of their children, they are far more strictly obliged to provide for their spiritual needs: They should make the home a place of peace and holiness, a true nursery of the Church. But it is also true that such a home atmosphere is definitely in short supply these days. Because of the crisis of faith and morals in our days,…Continue Reading

Charity: The New Commandment

February 2, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Charity: The New Commandment

By DON FIER Charity, as defined in the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, is “the theological virtue by which we love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves for the love of God” (n. 388). St. Thomas Aquinas, as we saw two weeks ago, describes it as “the mother of all virtues.” In a similar manner, Fr. Francis Spirago says that charity “may be called the queen of the virtues … [and] the greatest and noblest of all the virtues because it alone unites man to God, it alone gives value to the other virtues, and it alone will last beyond the grave” (The Catechism Explained, pp. 446-447; cf. 1 Cor. 13). Undeniably, all the…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

February 1, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Q. How many times in one day can a Catholic in the state of grace receive Holy Communion? If a well-disposed Catholic goes to morning Mass on Saturday, and then to a funeral Mass, and to the vigil Mass for Sunday in the evening, can he receive Communion at all three Masses? Different priests have given me different answers. — J.F., via e-mail. A. Canon 917 says that “a person who has received the Most Holy Eucharist may receive it again on the same day only during the celebration of the Eucharist in which the person participates, with due regard for the prescription of canon 921 §2.” That latter canon says that those in danger of death may receive the…Continue Reading

Roe V. Wade Anniversary… “The Pre-Eminent Human Rights Issue Of Our Time”

January 31, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Roe V. Wade Anniversary… “The Pre-Eminent Human Rights Issue Of Our Time”

(Editor’s Note: Following are statements and letters from several U.S. bishops marking the forty-sixth anniversary of Roe v. Wade and praying for an end to abortion.) + + + Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann Chairman USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities January 18, 2019 The pro-life ethic challenges us to care about the sacredness of every human being throughout the life spectrum. We are called always and everywhere to promote the dignity of the human person. Protecting the life of the unborn children is the pre-eminent human rights issue of our time, not only because of the sheer magnitude of the numbers, but because abortion attacks the sanctuary of life, the family. Abortion advocates pit the welfare of the mother against the…Continue Reading

See Light In The Darkness

January 29, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on See Light In The Darkness

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Fourth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR C) Readings: Jer. 1:4-5, 17-19 1 Cor. 12:31-13:13 Luke 4:21-30 In the first reading today, we hear about the call of the Prophet Jeremiah. While this passage was of paramount importance to the great prophet, I believe it has profound implications for each of us as well. Like Jeremiah, God has called us from the womb and dedicated us prior to our birth, but He has created us at this time in history and called us into His Holy Church. Given the circumstances taking place around us we need to listen to what the Lord said to Jeremiah and apply His counsel to ourselves: “Gird your loins; stand up and…Continue Reading

A Leaven In The World… Young Pro-Lifers Lead The Way

January 28, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on A Leaven In The World… Young Pro-Lifers Lead The Way

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK I saw a news item soon after the March for Life this year which purported to show Catholic high school boys at fault in an altercation with a Native American man. Uttering a prayer that it wasn’t true, I retweeted it as merely informational. Soon after came voices questioning the incomplete nature of the video. Sure enough, additional evidence showed that the initial characterization of the boys as the guilty parties was incorrect. In the meantime Catholic leaders had piled on with the accusers. The boys were wearing MAGA — Make America Great Again — hats, you see. As a result of the overwhelming anti-life choice of politicians of one of the two dominant political…Continue Reading

Marriage, The Great Sacrament… Today Under Threat Inside The Church

January 27, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Marriage, The Great Sacrament… Today Under Threat Inside The Church

By RAYMOND DE SOUZA, KM Part 1 Every Catholic with a basic religious education knows that marriage, or matrimony, is the sacrament that unites a Christian man and a Christian woman as husband and wife and gives them grace to fulfill the duties of the married state. It is a sacred covenant, that is, a binding agreement, by which two baptized persons, a man and a woman, undertake to live faithfully and affectionately together as husband and wife from that moment forward until parted by death, and to rear their children in the love and service of God. This is the basic Catholic teaching on marriage, monogamic and indissoluble. But today a dangerous teaching is circulating worldwide among Catholics, as…Continue Reading

Reflections On Deus Caritas Est

January 26, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Reflections On Deus Caritas Est

By DON FIER As we continue to examine the theological virtue of charity, it would serve us well to reflect on the wisdom contained in the first encyclical of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, who just celebrated his ninety-first birthday. The former Vicar of Christ has much to offer on how love and charity are to be properly understood. Pope Benedict issued Deus Caritas Est (“God is Love”) on the Feast of the Nativity in 2005 and it was subsequently released to the general public on January 25, 2006. The issuance date is symbolically significant in that it coincides with the Feast of the Incarnation, that day on which God bestowed on mankind the gift of His only begotten Son in…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

January 25, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Q. Is it an article of faith that the Blessed Mother died before being assumed into Heaven, or are we free to believe that she did not die before being taken to Heaven? — G.P., Florida. A. The Church has never formally declared that the Blessed Mother died before she was assumed, body and soul, into Heaven, but saints, holy writers, and Popes have said that she did undergo death but not the decay of the grave. Even if she did die, she would certainly have escaped the decay of the grave since that fate is the consequence of original sin, and Mary did not have original sin. St. John Damascene (675-749) referred to an “ancient and truthful tradition” that…Continue Reading

Putting The Family First

January 23, 2019 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Putting The Family First

By FR. SHENAN J. BOQUET (Editor’s Note: This article is reprinted with permission of Human Life International, www.hli.org. It first appeared at www.hli.org on January 14, 2019. Fr. Boquet is the president of HLI.) + + + Tucker Carlson of Fox News, Meet Bishop Thomas Olmsted. A pair of conservative authors writing in The Atlantic this past week have highlighted the stark marriage statistics in middle-class America. “[D]ramatic increases in nonmarital childbearing, divorce, and family instability among the working class mean that only about 55 percent of children with working-class mothers will reach age 14 in a home headed by two biological parents,” they noted. Meanwhile, “only minorities of poor adults (26 percent) and working-class adults (39 percent) ages 18…Continue Reading