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Featured Term (selected at random):EPISTLE TO THE ROMANS Written by St. Paul at Corinth about A.D. 58, when he was about to leave for Jerusalem at the end of his third missionary journey. He was on his way to Rome. It is the only Pauline letter addressed to a church that the apostle had not personally founded, preparing the people for his visit to them. He dwells on the justification of humankind through faith in Jesus Christ, the sinfulness of the world, the meaning and fruits of justification, what faith is, and that its fruits are humility, obedience, unity, and...

Featured Term (selected at random):ABSOLUTE That which is independent or not related to anything else; or that which is total and complete in itself. Applied to God, who is the Absolute, it is equivalent to the divine transcendence in two ways. He is absolutely independent of all creation for his own existence and perfections. They totally depend upon him but he is completely self-sufficient himself, since his essence is his existence. He is Being who cannot not be, whereas all others are contingent beings whose existence depends wholly on him who alone is necessary Being. But God is also absolutely...

September 5, 2011   Monday of the Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time   Reading 1 Col 1:24:2:3 Brothers and sisters:I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake,and in my flesh I am filling upwhat is lacking in the afflictions of Christon behalf of his Body, which is the Church,of which I am a ministerin accordance with God's stewardship given to meto bring to completion for you the word of God,the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past.But now it has been manifested to his holy ones,to whom God chose to make known the riches of the gloryof this mystery...

A Light in the “Dark Ages” The Life and Legacy of Saint Gregory the Great By: Robert Kennedy By any account, 590 was a disastrous year in Rome. Plague had struck, sweeping through the homes of poor and wealthy alike. Even the pope was carried away by the fearsome disease. The spring floods were the worst in memory; the Tiber broke through its retaining walls, causing enormous damage. The Lombards, a fierce barbarian tribe that had been invading Italy, were now threatening the city itself. Food was in short supply, civil government was breaking down, and there was little...

Featured Term (selected at random):JURISDICTION In ecclesiastical law, the right to exercise official and public authority in some capacity. Thus a bishop has jurisdiction in his diocese, a pastor in his parish, priests in the administration of the sacraments, priests and deacons in preaching, and religious superiors in directing the members of their respective communities. (Etym. Latin ius, right + dicere, to say: iurisdictio, official authority.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

August 27, 2011   Memorial of Saint Monica   Reading 1 1 Thes 4:9-11 Brothers and sisters:On the subject of fraternal charityyou have no need for anyone to write you,for you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another.Indeed, you do this for all the brothers throughout Macedonia.Nevertheless we urge you, brothers and sisters, to progress even more,and to aspire to live a tranquil life,to mind your own affairs,and to work with your own hands,as we instructed you. Responsorial Psalm Ps 98:1, 7-8, 9 R. (9) The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice.Sing to the LORD a...

August 26, 2011   Friday of the Twenty-First Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1 1 Thes 4:1-8 Brothers and sisters,we earnestly ask and exhort you in the Lord Jesus that,as you received from ushow you should conduct yourselves to please God?and as you are conducting yourselves?you do so even more.For you know what instructions we gave you through the Lord Jesus. This is the will of God, your holiness:that you refrain from immorality,that each of you know how to acquire a wife for himselfin holiness and honor, not in lustful passionas do the Gentiles who do not know God;not to...

Sources of Morality From the Catechism of the Catholic Church, SimplifiedThree Sources (1750) The three sources of morality: The object chosen The person's purpose The circumstances of the act The Object Chosen (1751) The object directly chosen by the will determines the basic morality (good or bad). The person's intellect sees this as according to moral standards (good) or not according to moral standards (evil).The Intention (1752-1753) The person also has an intention which determines the act's morality. An intention can guide many acts or even a whole lifetime (as loving God). One act can have a multiplicity of intentions...

August 21, 2011 Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time Reading 1 Is 22:19-23 Thus says the LORD to Shebna, master of the palace:"I will thrust you from your officeand pull you down from your station.On that day I will summon my servantEliakim, son of Hilkiah;I will clothe him with your robe,and gird him with your sash,and give over to him your authority.He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem,and to the house of Judah.I will place the key of the House of David on Eliakim's shoulder;when he opens, no one shall shutwhen he shuts, no one shall open.I will...

St. Christopher the 'Christ Bearer'   by Fr. William Saunders St. Christopher is still a saint. Tradition holds that he died at Lycia on the southern coast of Asia Minor about the year 251. Various legends surround his life. The most popular is that he was a rather ugly, giant man, born to a heathen king who was married to a Christian, who had prayed to the Blessed Mother for a child. Originally named "Offerus," he carried people across the river for his livelihood. (Another source stated that he was named "Reprobus" prior to his baptism, and then changed his...

Featured Term (selected at random):JECONIAS See: JECHONIAH (also spelled Jeconiah, Jeconias, Jehoiachin) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

July 4, 2011 Monday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time  Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 1Gn 28:10-22aJacob departed from Beer-sheba and proceeded toward Haran.When he came upon a certain shrine, as the sun had already set,he stopped there for the night.Taking one of the stones at the shrine, he put it under his headand lay down to sleep at that spot.Then he had a dream: a stairway rested on the ground,with its top reaching to the heavens;and God’s messengers were going up and down on it.And there was the LORD standing beside him and saying:“I, the LORD, am the God of...

ICEL’s Executive Director: New Missal Translation ‘Long Overdue’by Shawn Tribe I am grateful to have had the following article pointed out to me yesterday: ICEL’s Executive Director: New Missal Translation ‘Long Overdue’. An excerpt: Although Catholics have become accustomed to the current translation of the Roman missal and some may wonder why a new one is being introduced, Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth, who is executive director of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy — which prepared the forthcoming translation that debuts in Catholic churches in the U.S. on the First Sunday of Advent — says it was high time...

What Does GIRM 160 for the USA Really Say? Posted on 24 June 2011 by Fr. John Zuhlsdorf  When the new English translation of the Roman Missal is released, it will sport a new translation of the GIRM, the General Institution/Instruction of the Roman Missal.There are, of course, adaptations for the USA and other Anglophone regions.As it happens, the Congregation for Divine Worship has … tweaked some items.  I am sure this was to harmonize the language of the GIRM with the language of the rest of the Roman Missal.  However, tweaks may have been tweaked for other reasons.For example,...

Featured Term (selected at random):INSCRIPTIONS Writings or crude incisions made on the walls and tombs of the catacombs expressing the beliefs of the early Christians. These inscriptions show the people's faith in eternal life and resurrection of the dead, in purgatory, and in the joys of heaven. The word "bury" was unknown. The dead were deposited in faith, left for a time to rise on the last day. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

The Early Church Fathers on the Scriptures   Every page of the Bible is a hymn to Christby Augustine, c. 354-430 You have heard the account of the two disciples who met the Lord on the road to Emmaus and yet did not recognize him.  When he met them, they had lost all hope of the redemption that is in Christ, they were convinced that the Master was dead like any other man, they did not realize that Jesus inasmuch as he is Son of God was still alive.  According to them he had left this life without being able...

Featured Term (selected at random):TENDENCY Any inclination or disposition that, in human beings, becomes a desire. It is either an attraction to some specific good or an aversion from some specific evil. Natural tendencies are inborn and are really one's natural powers or faculties seeking expression. Supeernatural tendencies are the graces divinely conferred to incline the will to the practice of virtue beyond the capacity of the native will, or of virtue known only on divine faith. Both natural and supernatural tendencies may be either conscious, also called elicited, when a person actually experiences his striving toward a good or...

June 21, 2011Memorial of Saint Aloysius Gonzaga, religious Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 1Gn 13:2, 5-18Abram was very rich in livestock, silver, and gold.Lot, who went with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents,so that the land could not support them if they stayed together;their possessions were so great that they could not dwell together.There were quarrels between the herdsmen of Abram’s livestockand those of Lot’s.(At this time the Canaanites and the Perizziteswere occupying the land.)So Abram said to Lot:“Let there be no strife between you and me,or between your herdsmen and mine, for we are kinsmen.Is not the whole land...

Priests of the Domestic Church: A Father's Day Homily | Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers | Ignatius Insight In the days before global positioning systems, Mapquest, and Google Earth, men were stereotyped as reluctant to ask for directions. You know the scene: a couple is driving somewhere and, unable to find their destination, the wife turns to her husband and says, "Honey, maybe we should stop and ask for directions." The husband, dismayed that his wife would dare challenge his sense of direction, stubbornly says, "I know where I'm going!" This would go on and on until they eventually found the...

June 20, 2011Monday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time Reading 1Responsorial PsalmGospel Reading 1Gn 12:1-9The LORD said to Abram:“Go forth from the land of your kinsfolkand from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.“I will make of you a great nation,and I will bless you;I will make your name great,so that you will be a blessing.I will bless those who bless youand curse those who curse you.All the communities of the earthshall find blessing in you.”Abram went as the LORD directed him, and Lot went with him.Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran.Abram took...