Tuesday 12th November 2024

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A Beacon Of Light… The Power That Comes From The Eucharist

August 5, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on A Beacon Of Light… The Power That Comes From The Eucharist

By FR. RICHARD D. BRETON It’s the summer of 1804. Pope Pius VII is the Roman Pontiff and Thomas Jefferson is president of the United States. A young and beautiful Episcopalian widow of New York high society sits in St. Paul’s Chapel near Wall Street at the typical Sunday service. Yet, she finds herself staring out the window across the street at St. Peter’s Catholic Church and begins praying to the Blessed Sacrament.You see, she has just returned from Italy and has been heavily influenced by the Eucharistic piety of her Italian Catholic friends. Their witness was the seedbed for this young widow’s gradual conversion to Catholicism and it all began with their deep devotion to the Mass and our…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

August 4, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. Contact information is included at the bottom of this column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 23-27) Human actions involve the use of the intellect and the will. Every human act derives its morality from three elements: the act itself, the purpose of the act, and the circumstances surrounding the act. The act itself, or the object of the act, is “the primary and decisive element for moral judgment,” said Pope St. John Paul II, because it “establishes whether it…Continue Reading

Sin, Synods, And Cardinal Sins

August 3, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Sin, Synods, And Cardinal Sins

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK American Catholics operate within the context of a rapidly withering, if not fully dismantled, Democracy. The virtual barricades of a subversive revolution to transform our polity into a Communist or Marxist tyranny are the transformed instruments of government. The deep state FBI, CIA, Congress and government bureaucracies which have grown too big and unmanageable are all part of the problem. All this while the frustration of the working middle-class patriotic Americans grows, threatening to again boil over.David French sums up well the crisis in which we marinate in his book Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.“It’s time for Americans to wake up to a fundamental reality: the continued unity…Continue Reading

Why Would God Sow Seed He Knows Will Bear Little Or No Fruit?

August 2, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Why Would God Sow Seed He Knows Will Bear Little Or No Fruit?

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Charles Pope posted this essay on July 24 and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + At Sunday Masses the past two weeks we have heard parables about seeds and sowers. In Sunday’s Gospel we pondered the mystery that God permits weeds to grow and counsels patience in too radically seeking to prevent or remove them. This demonstrates his respect for our freedom and his power to draw good even from evil and suffering.The week prior, we heard of seed falling on various surfaces and yielding varying results. Here too is the interaction of God’s Providence and power with our freedom to prepare our soul as rich soil or not. But recently,…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

August 1, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Editor’s Note: This lesson on medical-moral issues is taken from the book Catholicism & Ethics. Please feel free to use the series for high schoolers or adults. We will continue to welcome your questions for the column as well. Our postal address and our email address are given at the bottom of the column. Special Course On Catholicism And Ethics (Pages 43-51) In the depths of our conscience, there is a natural law, a law embedded in our human nature, which summons us to do good and avoid evil. We are not talking about the laws of nature, which are physical and biological, but rather the law which God puts in our hearts that tells us that certain actions are…Continue Reading

The Lebanese Saint Who Unites Christians And Muslims

August 1, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on The Lebanese Saint Who Unites Christians And Muslims

By HANNAH BROCKHAUS ANNAYA, Lebanon (CNA) — St. Charbel Makhlouf is known in Lebanon for the miraculous healings of those who visit his tomb to seek his intercession — both Christians and Muslims.“St. Charbel has no geographic or confessional limits. Nothing is impossible for [his intercession] and when people ask [for something], he answers,” Fr. Louis Matar, coordinator of the Shrine of St. Charbel in Annaya, Lebanon, told Catholic News Agency.Speaking in Arabic with the help of an interpreter, Matar said the shrine, which encompasses the monastery where the Maronite Catholic priest, monk, and hermit lived for nearly 20 years, receives approximately 4 million visitors a year, including both Christians and Muslims.Matar, who is responsible for archiving the thousands of…Continue Reading

Elijah Saw God Work In Glorious Ways

July 31, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Elijah Saw God Work In Glorious Ways

By FR. ROBERT ALTIER Nineteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time (YR A) Readings:1 Kings 19:9a, 11-13aRomans 9:1-5Matt. 14:22-33 In the first reading, we hear about the Prophet Elijah going to the mountain of God, Horeb, which is the same as Mount Sinai. When the Israelites first came out of Egypt, the Lord revealed Himself to them in a variety of extraordinary ways. They needed to know He is the all-powerful God and that He was completely unlike the gods of the Egyptians.Now Elijah comes to this same mountain after witnessing the power of God in a variety of extraordinary ways. Recall that Elijah called down fire on three occasions, he prayed and the rains were stopped for three and a half…Continue Reading

Catholic Replies

July 28, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Catholic Replies

Q. Could you please explain the following passages: Hebrews 6:4-6 and Hebrews 10:26-27? — M.M., Maryland.A. The first passage says that “it is impossible in the case of those who have once been enlightened and tasted the heavenly gift and shared in the Holy Spirit and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, to bring them to repentance again, since they are re-crucifying the Son of God for themselves and holding him up to contempt.”If “enlightened” is a reference to Baptism and “heavenly gift” to the Eucharist, then those who deliberately defect from these twin pillars of the Christian Faith, which is the definition of the malice of…Continue Reading

Why Change Is Francis’ Only Constant

July 27, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Why Change Is Francis’ Only Constant

By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK Many pundits and Vaticanists are scratching their heads and wracking their brains in the attempt to make sense of Pope Francis’ cardinal picks, the appointment of Fernandez to the doctrinal dicastery, the high turnover rate of personal secretaries and other oddities of his pontificate. Of which there are many.You cannot make sense of nonsense, however.When the plan is apparently to undo all plans, turn the Church into an unorganized mess, overwhelm the Catholic system with non-Catholic and anti-Catholic distractions, substitutions and inversions, the use of reason is useless in making sense of it all.Catholic writers who have confidently for years made a living explaining for the benefit of other Catholics the inside scoop on the…Continue Reading

Time To Decide — A Reflection On A Question From Elijah

July 26, 2023 Our Catholic Faith Comments Off on Time To Decide — A Reflection On A Question From Elijah

By MSGR. CHARLES POPE (Editor’s Note: Msgr. Pope posted this essay on July 17 and it is reprinted here with permission.) + + In this week’s Office of Readings comes a crucial question from Elijah. It came at a time of widespread apostasy among the Jewish people. Elijah summoned a multitude to Mt. Carmel in the far north of Israel:Elijah appealed to all the people and said, “How long will you straddle the issue? If the Lord is God, follow him; if Baal, follow Him.” The people, however, did not answer him (1 Kings 18:21).The Baals were the gods of the Canaanites. It had become expedient and popular to worship them because the ruling political leaders, the apostate King Ahab…Continue Reading