When the chief priests and officers cried out, “Crucify him, crucify him” (Jn 19:6), they called for Jesus to die the most abhorrent type of death known to the world at that time. Over the years, Romans crucified thousands of men. Each “miserable procedure,” as Josephus called it, was as terrifying and brutal as the next.
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Lent, Fasting, and Receiving Divine Light
The lenten discipline of fasting opens up the true horizon of life’s meaning, purifying us of unhealthy material attachments and opening the way for the eternal Word to penetrate our hearts.
A Lenten Reflection on The Prodigal Son
The story of the prodigal son is one of my favorite parables. I love how Jesus provides the example of the father’s immense generosity, compassion and mercy to teach us about who God really is.
Lent, Fasting and Abstinence For Catholics Part 3
Fasting and Abstinence. Are they important? Are they necessary? The Church, as a caring mother, is providing us a specific means and season for completing acts of penance, such as fasting and abstinence. Her goal is to see to it that her children attain eternal life. Her precept on fasting, then, is for our spiritual benefit.
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Finding the Truth in Jesus Christ
St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae, citing Isaac Israeli ben Solomon, said “veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus” which means “truth is the equation of thought and thing.” It is crucial to be able to say “the truth is outside of me, it does not depend on me; and all I’m doing is discovering it, not making it.
Lent, Fasting, and Abstinence Part 2: The Benefits of Fasting According to St. Thomas Aquinas
The spiritual benefits of fasting are many. Not only is it an excellent means of engaging in penance, as Christians are required to do, but it confers other benefits such as helping to build self-mastery, the control of the soul over the desires of the flesh.
Go With Jesus Into the Desert
We all struggle with disordered appetites and unconverted ways of thinking and living. We also demonstrate in our daily lives a lack of charity in our relationships with others.
Lent, Fasting, and Abstinence Part 1
It’s the sacred season of Lent. The three disciplines of Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. One of the questions people frequently have about Lent pertains to fasting.
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Did Christ Found a Leaderless Church?
Catholics can accept the view that Christ founded the Church on the faith of Peter. However, we reject the notion that that is all Christ intended.
Morality and the Power of Human Freedom
We live in an age that espouses a notion of freedom of choice as a power to do whatever one desires without reference to any evaluative or objective norm outside of a self-constructed individualistic compass.
The Eucharist is Christ Himself
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
The Eucharist is Christ: All Else in Life is Expendable
The American novelist Flannery O’Connor once commented about how the Eucharist was the center of her existence. “All the rest of life is expendable,” she said. If we plumb the depths of the Eucharist in faith, we are met with the fact that we cannot live without it.
The ‘God of the Gaps’ Error
The God of the Gaps error goes like this: If scientists cannot explain how something occurs in nature, then it MUST be due to a special miracle by God.
The Reality of Marriage: The Lifelong Union of One Man and One Woman
Marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman. It cannot be redefined. There’s no possibility of reshaping it into something new and essentially different, since marriage is authored by God and woven into the fabric of human life.