Do you struggle with sharing the Faith with others? I do. Thankfully, a priest I know addressed this issue in a homily. He outlined a simple process for dialoguing with people about the Faith. Here it is.
I remember listening to one older friend of mine talking about his grownup children. Though they’ve fallen away from the Faith, he described them as “good people.”
When we read accounts of the saints, a lot of them might strike us as “sugar and spice and everything nice.” Not St. Elizabeth of the Trinity! The elder of two daughters, she was an energetic, strong-willed girl given to temper tantrums.
Never in the history of the Catholic Church has there been a canonized American-born martyr to the faith. The fact that he has been beatified, and his case for canonization is being examined, is cause for great excitement among American Catholics and demands that his story be told again.
Thomas Becket and King Henry II of England were the closest of friends. Accounts of their friendship describe the two as being like-minded in many of the issues confronting England. Thomas is frequently credited as playing a major role in the political reforms Henry was applauded for instituting.
It’s easy to condemn evil from the comfortable armchair of hindsight. The Nazis were evil. Who in good conscience would have cooperated in their destructive agenda? Surely I wouldn’t have! It’s quite another thing to face the choice either to cooperate with evil, or lose your life.
The French saints Louis and Zélie Martin are perhaps most famous as the parents of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, but their own stories are less well-known.
Raphael is a major figure in the Book of Tobit, rendering immeasurable help to Tobit and his son Tobiah. Though a great archangel, he can instruct and aid us in many ways.
Imagine that the United States has gone to war with Canada and that the war has raged for more than eight decades. The war has been so brutal that the central government in the United States has vanished.
At age 26, Edmund Campion had the world at his feet. He was an eloquent orator, of sweet and amiable temper, with a large number of followers and a golden future ahead. Yet his doubts and thirst for the truth held him back.
The human body is objectified in the present day in a way that it was not during the time of Michelangelo. This is a subject that generates heated discussion and is a source of contention even among Catholics, so how do we approach this issue in our daily lives?
Let’s go on a short virtual tour of St. Raymond of Peñafort in the Diocese of Arlington, VA. This is a relatively new church (~2006) constructed in a traditional style. It is an ideal example of Catholic architecture for us to explore and draw reflections from.
As a freshman in college, I had the opportunity to take several trips with other art students to New York City. In one art gallery, I was surprised to find that the entire exhibition consisted of giant concrete blocks arranged in various ways. I walked around, confused. What’s the meaning behind “artwork” like this? What does it say about society that things like this are considered great art?
Based on the 1862 book by Victor Hugo, this popular musical runs the gamut of human experience: love and loss, forgiveness and bitterness, justice and mercy, grace and despair.
The purpose of sacred art is to lift your thoughts toward God. If you’re a visual person, art can be a helpful and enjoyable way to draw yourself into prayer.