Carrying Knowledge to You
Unique among all the Christian churches, the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) is a “compendium of all Catholic doctrine regarding faith and morals”. It is a reference text for formulated to communicate the “essential and fundamental content of Catholic faith and morals in a complete and summary way.”
Continue reading “What is the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC)?”
The importance of Church unity goes back all the way to the foundations of the Church, where we see the first apostles battling with divisions and heresies. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians was, and is a powerful appeal to all Christians against dissension, quarrels and splinter groups purporting to belong to one school or another.
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
For the body does not consist of one member of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single organ, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”On the contrary, the parts of the body which seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those parts of the body which we think less honourable we invest with the greater honour, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so adjusted the body, giving the greater honour to the inferior part, that there may be no discord in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honoured, all rejoice together.
(1Cor 12:12-26)
Continue reading ““Mit Brennender Sorge” (With Burning Concern): The Importance of Church Unity”
On Christian fellowship and cooperation.
“So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are equal, and each shall receive his wages according to his labour. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.”
1 Corinthians 7-9
It is not an overstatement to say that the Rosary is one of the most important prayers for a Catholic. Not only does the Church advocate for the individual recitation of the Rosary, but also the regular practice of praying the Rosary as a family, within your parish or simply with two or three gathered together.
Some people think the Rosary is expendable, or less important because they solely rely on the Bible or the first apostles to assess the relative value of different devotions. This is a faulty way of looking at the Rosary because many Catholic devotions have developed over time through the workings of the Holy Spirit. Oftentimes, in the history of the Church, God has chosen to let the seed of something planted in the Bible, or through the traditions of the first apostles, over centuries, grow and blossom into fresh understanding of our relationship with God. The Rosary is a prime example of this.
Continue reading “The Rosary (Part 1)”
Let us clear away some cobwebs first of all. I often encounter gross misunderstandings about why the Catholic Church reserves priesthood for men alone. One frequent refrain I hear is that the Catholic Church is sexist. For over 2000 years the teaching of the Church has remained the same, a tradition preserved irrespective of its inconvenience to whatever the prevailing (ever fluctuating) culture might say. So, now to the nuts and bolts.
Continue reading “Women and the Church (Part 1) – Why Priests are Men.”
I have often encountered the view that a saint is perfect. Well, this is simply not true. If we are to talk about perfection at all in the life of a saint, then we are speaking about the goal of living God’s will as perfectly as possible. However, let us leave behind this oftentimes lofty image of the saints as if they had no flaws. The saints were excellent individuals, but they were not perfect. However God loves man so much that He uses even our flaws — if we humbly give them to Him — as instruments with the power to transform our lives and those around us. We could say that the saints achieved a degree of spiritual excellence, such was their love for God. For nothing motivates a person to become who God wants them to be except the love of God and the recognition that God wills for each human being the highest possible good.
Continue reading “What is a Saint? (Part 1)”
These three theological virtues form the bedrock of Christianity, and yet when it comes to putting them into practice it can prove very difficult indeed. Well, that’s the point. Not that they are difficult, but that the practice of them requires struggle. And we can’t struggle alone either or we will definitely fall flat on our faces when the chips are down. Each virtue is interlinked, they form bridges to each other, and our (hopefully) tenacious struggle to attain and cultivate these virtues is facilitated by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Let’s start with hope. In order to remain hopeful even when all seems lost, we have to continue to place our faith in God. And why would we continue to do this even when everything seems bleak and even as if God has abandoned us?
Continue reading “Faith, Hope and Charity as Bridges”
There is a beautiful morning prayer that is part of Catholic tradition. Recently on EWTN’s The Journey Home, guest Jim Anderson, a former Episcopal priest, shared the profound influence this prayer had on his personal journey to Catholicism.
Continue reading “A Morning Prayer”(Part I – The Son of God)
When I first pondered this question, I realized that there were many things I took for granted, which I assumed that everyone knew. I also began to understand that if anyone were truly interested in understanding what Christianity meant, then they would have to know who Jesus was at a fundamental level. And if they really wanted to live as a Christian, they would have to develop an intimate relationship with Jesus that transcended anything anyone in other religions could ever experience.
It would be entirely accurate to say that as a Christian, the goal of our lives is to know Jesus so deeply, that our souls ultimately reflect only Him. The great saints of the Church knew this and their lives radiated such a great love for Jesus that their works were imprinted with Christ.
Continue reading “Who is Jesus?”
Now that 2021 has dawned, what better way to mark a whole new year than follow a plan to know and understand scripture better. How many of us only read the Bible through the liturgy in the Mass? No wonder Protestants accuse Catholics of knowing very little about the Bible. If you really want to understand what ‘the Word’ means, and how to prayerfully approach the Bible so that the Holy Spirit can really enlighten you, there is no getting away from understanding the Bible in its entirety.
Happily, if you do not know where to start, the inimitable Fr Mike Schmitz of ‘Ascension Presents‘ (the Catholic Evangelistic platform on YouTube) has devised a plan to guide you through the entire Bible in one year via a series of podcasts. You can either listen to these podcasts from the website directly, or very conveniently through a variety of app platforms such as Apple Podcasts, Stitcher or Google to name a few.
Continue reading “Get to know the Bible”