Sunday 5th May 2024

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Receiving Communion Means Obedience To Fullness Of Faith

September 1, 2022 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Receiving Communion Means Obedience To Fullness Of Faith

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK The faith which Christ proposes offers true freedom. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” as St. Paul teaches.The Church continues the preaching of the good news about this new life which the Lord offers, and without which no human person is freed from the bondage of unbelief or enslavement to idols.Almighty God created us in the freedom of His loving initiative. He created us in His image and thus endowed us with free will.The initiative of salvation is a free encounter with God Incarnate in Jesus Christ. Faith in Him is a continuing choice to conform our lives to His incarnate Revelation of the truth about love.Of course there are false prophets. The Lord…Continue Reading

Stages Of Persecution

August 31, 2022 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Stages Of Persecution

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on August 17. It is reprinted here with permission.) + + With the recent article in The Atlantic linking the rosary to extremist gun culture we see a gross misunderstanding in the nature of spiritual warfare and its true target, Satan. The rosary is a weapon, but a spiritual one. While it is possible that the author simply misunderstands our allegorical references to warfare, I rather doubt he is that dumb. Rather, I suspect that this is an attempt to stereotype, and vilify, Catholics, especially traditional ones. These are tactics used to lay a groundwork for the marginalization and persecution of the faithful and the criminalization of their…Continue Reading

We Cannot Serve Two Masters

August 29, 2022 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on We Cannot Serve Two Masters

BY FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Third Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR C) Readings: Wisdom 9:13-18bPhilemon 9-10, 12-17Luke 14:25-33 In the first reading the question is asked about who can know God’s counsel or conceive what God intends? As we have seen so many times, what God has revealed to us in Scripture seems very clear and we assume we know what it means and how it will be fulfilled. Then, when the fulfillment happens, very frequently it catches us completely off guard. It was fulfilled exactly the way God said it would be, but what He said and how we interpreted what He said prove to be very different.If we look just at the readings today, even the most basic and…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

August 26, 2022 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: Responding to a recent question about why the acclamation “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” is no longer used at Mass, R.M.W. of New York offers this explanation:“Although it is certainly theologically sound (quite sound, in fact!), as well as emotionally stirring, the reason ‘Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again’ was removed is because it is not actually a part of the text of the Roman Missal, but was an illicit addition to the previous English edition (the Sacramentary of 1975), along with ‘Dying you destroyed our death. rising you restored our life. Lord Jesus, come in glory,’ as well as all of the ‘Alternative Opening Prayers.’“In keeping with the…Continue Reading

My Mother, My Church

August 25, 2022 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on My Mother, My Church

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK As my mother declines through the ravages of vascular dementia, my family has joined forces to organize around the clock presence with her in the hospital. She was admitted after stroke symptoms resulting from a brain bleed at the nursing home prompted a call for the ambulance. We are faced with very difficult decisions to make as we ensure her care is in keeping with our Catholic moral principles.We have watched and surrounded her for some years now after the initial diagnosis following her experiences of memory loss. She has been blessed with many visits from loving and faithful friends in addition to family in the Catholic nursing home to which she was admitted after…Continue Reading

Two Teachings Of The Lord . . . That Correct Flawed Notions Of Judgment

August 24, 2022 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Two Teachings Of The Lord . . . That Correct Flawed Notions Of Judgment

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this on August 8. It is reprinted here with permission.) + + When it comes to our personal and final judgment, after we die, there are many caricatures and distortions that are possible. One is of Jesus as a stern and grouchy judge who is looking for reasons to keep us out of Heaven. This is the “sinners in the hand of an angry God” distortion. Or perhaps the Lord is weighing our good deeds against our bad deeds in a kind of impersonal, numerical manner. This is the Pelagian distortion where salvation depends on our earning it.But at the other end of the spectrum and far too common today…Continue Reading

Humility Leads To Charity

August 22, 2022 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Humility Leads To Charity

BY FR. ROBERT ALTIER Twenty-Second Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR C) Readings: Sirach 3:17-18, 20, 28-29Heb. 12:18-19, 22-24aLuke 14:1, 7-14 In the first reading, Sirach tells us to conduct our affairs with humility. This is certainly sound advice because no one likes to deal with someone who is pompous and arrogant. However, this is not the reason Sirach gives. Instead, he says that the one who humbles himself will be loved more than a giver of gifts. Givers of gifts tend to be very popular, but often they are loved for what they do, not for who they are. Those who are humble, on the other hand, are loved for who they are because it is their humility that draws…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

August 19, 2022 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This column begins a series on the Bible from the book Catholicism & Scripture. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. You can send them either to the postal mailing address or to the email address below, and we will interrupt this series to answer them. Special Course On Catholicism And Scripture (Chapter 1) Any study of Holy Scripture should begin with answering some questions about the origin and nature of the Bible. First of all, who wrote the Bible? God is the true author of the Bible, but He entrusted the writing of the Scriptures to human authors who, over…Continue Reading

Triumph Of Modernist Ecclesial Suicide

August 18, 2022 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Triumph Of Modernist Ecclesial Suicide

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK For many years now the Catholic middle-of-the-road attempt to avoid extremes was a recommended and safe conservatism, a refuge for those who favored tradition.On one side, the extreme to be avoided was the Protestant heresy. Respect for the Catholic past was necessary. We were part of a Church that was 2,000 years old, after all, because founded by the Lord Himself. We didn’t want to make the mistake of rejecting certain essentials as Protestants do, of course.There were, we knew, ever-spawning new Christian-like sects; splitting apart and reforming again and again, amoeba-like; new cells combining to imitate the old ones but at the same time, by doing so, mitigating against unity in their multiplicity.The Church…Continue Reading

You Can’t Take It With You… But You Can Send It On Ahead

August 17, 2022 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on You Can’t Take It With You… But You Can Send It On Ahead

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE Part 2 (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on July 30 and it is reprinted here with permission. Because of the essay’s length, we are presenting it in two parts. The first part appeared in last week’s issue.) + + The Illusion of Wealth — The parable goes on to say, And [the man] said, “This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, ‘Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!’”And here we are taught that riches easily…Continue Reading