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"The Apostles almost always fasted." Saint John Chrysostom (Sermon 57 on the Gospel of Matthew) Patristic Testimony Concerning the Fast The fast of the holy Apostles is very ancient, dating back to the first centuries of Christianity. We have the testimony of St. Athanasius the Great, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Leo the Great and Theodoret of Cyrrhus regarding it. The oldest testimony regarding the Apostles Fast is given to us by St. Athanasius the Great (†373). In his letter to Emperor Constance, in speaking of the persecution by the Arians, he writes: "During the week following Pentecost, the people...

Time to Decide – A Reflection on a Question from Elijah Msgr. Charles Pope • June 13, 2018 • At Mass for Wednesday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time, we read 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...

What Ails Us? The Rise of the Imperial, Autonomous Self Msgr. Charles Pope • June 12, 2018 • A rather succinct and accurate summary of our current malaise is that we live in the age of “the imperial, autonomous self.” In effect, many if not most people claim an authority, a right, to craft their own reality and live according to their own notions of it. Not so long ago, it was generally accepted that reality was something outside ourselves, something that we had to go out to meet, study, and obey. There was a certain “is-ness” to things....

When Catholics call Mary the "Blessed Virgin," they mean she remained a virgin throughout her life. When Protestants refer to Mary as "virgin," they mean she was a virgin only until Jesus’ birth. They believe that she and Joseph later had children whom Scripture refers to as "the brethren of the Lord." The disagreement arises over biblical verses that use the terms "brethren," "brother," and "sister." There are about ten instances in the New Testament where "brothers" and "sisters" of the Lord are mentioned (Matt. 12:46; Matt. 13:55; Mark 3:31–34; Mark 6:3; Luke 8:19–20; John 2:12, 7:3, 5, 10; Acts...

Three Insights of Pope Leo XIII That Diagnose Our Cultural Malaise Msgr. Charles Pope • June 11, 2018 • Pope Leo XIII penned an insightful analysis of three trends that both alarmed him and pointed to future problems. He wrote of these three concerns in 1893 in the Encyclical on the Holy Rosary entitled Laetitiae Sanctae (Of Holy Joy). The Pope laid out these three areas of concern and then offered the Mysteries of the Rosary as a remedy. Let’s look at how he described the problems and then consider what he proposed as a solution. His teaching is...

A unique monastery--Russia's own Holy Land, founded by the controversial Patriarch Nikon in 1656--has finally been rebuilt in MoscowThe breathtakingly beautiful, architecturally unique and historically significant New Jerusalem monastery has occupied a place of unique veneration among Russians during its 350-year history. A few years before the Revolution, it was visited by about 35,000 people annually. It was originally founded in 1656 by Patriarch Nikon, who built it to imitate structurally and thematically the Church of Christ’s Tomb in Jerusalem. This was done so that Russians who could not make the long pilgrimage to Jerusalem could get a taste of...

God Has His Seven Thousand: A Word of Encouragement from the Life of Elijah Msgr. Charles Pope • June 10, 2018 • This week in daily Mass we read of the struggles of Elijah the Prophet, who spent his life fighting the influence of the Canaanite god Baal in Israel. Up on Mt. Carmel, Elijah was strong and fearless, but he also had moments of deep discouragement.Many of us today are discouraged in these times of cultural confusion, times when so many Catholics have fallen away from the practice of the faith or so easily dissent. It makes me...

The world famous St. Cyril-White Lake Monastery-museum, located in the Vologda Region, 360 miles north of Moscow, will receive 508 million ruble (more than $8 million) for restoration under the federal “Culture of Russia” program, reports Blagovest-Info. “The scope of the work is huge. It is the leading tourist site of the region, visited by more than 300,000 people annually. I hope that all the funds will help the museum become a leading excursion site for the whole “Northern Necklace” of Russia,” Vologda Province Governor Oleg Kuvshinnikov said on Monday. As explained by museum-reserve director Mikhail Sharomazov, the allocated funds...

His Hand is Stretched Out Still By Philip Cottraux Isaiah is a reflection of the entire Bible itself. The Bible is 66 books. Isaiah is 66 chapters. The Bible is divided into Old and New Testaments. In the 39 books of the Old Testament we tend to view God as angry and vengeful, destroying Sodom and Gomorra with fire and brimstone, killing the firstborn of Egypt during the tenth plague or having all the men, women, and children of Jericho slaughtered by Joshua’s army. Likewise, the first 39 chapters of Isaiah focus primarily on dire warnings of God’s judgment; but...

Three Crucial Questions, One Crucial Plan: A Homily for the 10th Sunday of the Year Msgr. Charles Pope • June 9, 2018 • Adam and Eve, Charles-Joseph Natoire (1740)In the first reading for Sunday (from Genesis) the Lord asks three important questions and sets into motion a “crucial” plan for our salvation. The word “crucial” is rooted in the Latin word for cross (crux or crucis). As such, it indicates something that is central by a coming together of the horizontal and vertical. It also points to a suffering that needs healing. Let’s look at each question in turn...

Landmark new research that involves analyzing millions of DNA barcodes has debunked much about what we know today about the evolution of species. In a massive genetic study, senior research associate at the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University Mark Stoeckle and University of Basel geneticist David Thaler discovered that virtually 90 percent of all animals on Earth appeared at right around the same time. More specifically, they found out that 9 out of 10 animal species on the planet came to being at the same time as humans did some 100,000 to 200,000 years ago. "This conclusion...

Many of us know about D-Day through films like “Saving Private Ryan.” But no film has ever told the story of another great battle that took place that day. June 1944. A tense and tired world is awaiting word of an Allied invasion of Western Europe, crushed for years under the jackboots of the Nazi war machine. In the early morning hours of June 6, the news flashes over American radios: The greatest amphibious invasion in history has begun on the beaches of Normandy, France. As paratroopers leap from their planes and landing craft speed toward the coast, another great...

Review by Jean-Claude Larchet of Guillaume Cuchet’s book Comment notre monde a cessé d’être chrétien. Anatomie d’un effondrement [How our world stopped being Christian: anatomy of a collapse] (Paris: Seuil, 2018), 276 pp. For half a century, many authors have noted the spectacular decadence of Catholicism in France and more widely in Europe, and have worried about it: Louis Bouyer in The Decomposition of Catholicism (1968), Serge Bonnet in À hue et à dia. The Avatars of Clericalism in the Fifth Republic (1973), Michel de Certeau and Jean-Marie Domenach in Christianity Exploded (1974), Paul Vigneron in A History of the...

The Passing of Things as Seen on Television Msgr. Charles Pope • June 8, 2018 • Below is a link to a commercial that must have taken weeks to film. Regardless of its intent (selling home insurance), there is something of an admonition in both the visuals and the music, that life and the things of life slip away.While the music sets forth the theme, “Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow; don’t stop, it’ll soon be here,” the objects in the house start to get up and leave the house and its owners. The owners themselves begin to be swept...

Beware the “Soloists” - A Concern for the Protestant “Solos”: Sola Fide, Sola Scriptura, Sola Gratia Msgr. Charles Pope • June 7, 2018 • There are a lot of “solos” sung by our Protestant brethren: sola fide (saved by faith alone), sola Scriptura (Scripture alone is the rule of faith), and sola gratia (grace alone). Generally, one ought to be leery of claims that things work “alone.” Typically, many things work together in harmony; things are interrelated. Very seldom is anyone or anything really “alone.”The problem with “solos” emerges (it seems to me) in our mind, where it is...

An Unequivocal Affirmation by Jesus that the Dead Will Rise Msgr. Charles Pope • June 6, 2018 • In the Gospel for Wednesday of the 9th week, the Church presents us with a strong reminder and teaching on the resurrection. Let’s look at what we are taught: The Ridicule of the Resurrection – The Gospel opens as follows: Some Sadducees, who deny there is a resurrection, came forward and put [a] question to Jesus. They proposed a hypothetical situation in which a woman is married seven times, to brothers who successively die without siring any children by her. The...

These incredible images remind us of the brave sacrifice of thousands and the important role of chaplains and priests during the aftermathSeventy-four years after the Allied invasion of Normandy, we remember and honor those who served during the largest seaborne invasion in history. On that one day, over 10,000 Allied soldiers were killed, wounded or declared missing in action. In the course of the Normandy campaign, which lasted through August 21, 1944, Allied forces landed more than two million men in northern France and suffered more than 226,000 casualties. Chaplains and Catholic priests played an important role in providing essential...

If You Think You’re in a Hurry, You Have No Idea How Fast You’re Really Getting There Msgr. Charles Pope • June 5, 2018 • Have you been feeling a little rushed lately? Well, you might be surprised to find out how fast you’re actually moving even when you think you’re “standing still.” Earth, at the latitude of Washington, D.C., is spinning at a rate of about 750 miles per hour [1].At the same time, the spinning Earth is rotating around the Sun at approximately 67,000 miles per hour [2].And the Sun around which we move so rapidly is...

On June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied soldiers clambered aboard heaving landing craft and braved six-foot swells, waves of machine gun fire, and more than 6 million mines to claim a stretch of sand at a place called Normandy. Their mission was to carve out an Allied foothold on the edge of Nazi-occupied Europe for the army of more than one million that would follow them in the summer of 1944. This army would burst forth from the beachhead, rolling across Europe into the heart of Germany, liberating millions, toppling a genocidal regime and ending a nightmare along the way. But...

Summary Dr. Craig responds to a critique by the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry. For those who want to understand what Molinism is, This page gives a quick explanation.   KEVIN HARRIS: Is Molinism biblical? If you are still not sure what Molinism is, we have lots of resources at ReasonableFaith.org – some writings, some podcasts. Welcome to Reasonable Faith with Dr. William Lane Craig. I'm Kevin Harris. My dear friend Matt Slick of CARM (Christian Apologetics Research Ministry) doesn't think that Molinism is biblical. Matt is more of the Calvinist persuasion. We are going to look at an...