I recently re-discovered a small prayer book I acquired, entirely by accident, 17 years ago. It was given to me by an elderly woman in Idaho. I had taken a job with a friend’s family business installing well pumps during our last summer before college, and we were doing some work at her home. As it turned out,…
In October 1966, less than a year after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, philosopher and eminent Catholic theologian Dietrich Von Hildebrand asked whether or not we are better prepared to “meet Christ in the mass by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our own pedestrian, workaday world.” (The Case…
It is an all-too-frequent experience in my own spiritual life that when I have resolved to go to confession — particularly if my need for absolution is pressing — all manner of obstacles present themselves to prevent me from keeping my appointment with the sacrament. Distractions arise that avert my eyes from a close watch on the clock, causing me…
But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no: and that which is over and above these, is of evil. —Matthew 5:37 There is a certain debate that began at the Second Vatican Council and has never been settled. It is a dispute over whether it is better to use the phrase, “the medicine of mercy” to describe the Church’s approach…
“O how I have loved thy law, O Lord! It is my meditation all through the day. Through thy commandment thou hast made me wiser than my enemies: for it is always with me.” Psalm 119: 97-98. From Evangelii Guadium, to his synod address, and everywhere in between, Pope Francis has returned again and again…
“All are welcome!” You can hardly walk into a Catholic parish today without encountering this slogan. Not so long ago all the talk was about the “New Evangelization,” but that topic has been back-burnered in favor of “welcoming.” No one should feel excluded from the Catholic Church! Who is it, exactly, that has been complaining…
The disorder introduced into our human nature by Adam’s fall from grace reveals itself especially through seven dominant vices known in the Catholic tradition as the capital sins. These are: pride, avarice, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. We call them “capital” sins (from the Latin caput, “head”) because they are the sources or fountainheads…
At the end of Lent last spring, on Lazarus Saturday, I experienced resurrection from death in sin in conversion. Through illumination in the mysteries of baptism, chrismation (also called confirmation in the West ), and the holy Eucharist, I became a member of the Body of Christ, which is the Catholic Church, by the grace…
No, I’m not referring to myself in the title, though I would bristle at the accusation of heresy, or even theological imprecision. The forthcoming (November/December 2014) edition of The Catholic Response magazine features this cool-headed commentary by its founder and editor, Father Peter Stravinskas, on the 2014 Extraordinary Synod on the Family. Because it generates more…
During a recent dinner conversation, a Jewish friend asked me, with sincere politeness, if I agreed with the Church’s attempts to “impose its morality” on a pluralistic society when it comes to abortion and other hot-button issues. She, like other American secularists, — I say “other” because, although my friend is Jewish, the Reform denomination…
“Put me as a seal upon thy heart, as a seal upon thy arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy as hard as hell, the lamps thereof are fire and flames. Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for…
