Tomorrow marks the thirty-third anniversary of my first Holy Communion, a day that I remember vividly and with great fondness. My firstborn son, Joshua, is preparing for his first Communion, and over the last few months we have been engaged in some wonderful conversations as he explores the mystery of the Eucharist.
For years now, our family bedtime ritual has included time for Scripture reading, followed by some basic theological reflection and prayer. I have always marveled at how...
I was never fed in the Catholic Church.
How many times have you heard a former Catholic say this? When I was an Evangelical Christian it was probably the most common response I heard from Catholics when asked why they had left the Church. The sad truth is that most of these lapsed Catholics were never properly catechized, so they became easy targets for Protestants who were only too eager to help them abandon the sacraments and join a church that "feeds you...
Last week while I was working at my computer, my phone chimed with an incoming text. I decided to go with the distraction, so I picked up the phone to read:
I need to miss adoration tonight. Are you going to be there? If not, I'll make it.
The text was from my partner in eucharistic adoration. We fill the same late-night slot at a local parish that offers perpetual adoration. I quickly responded, "No worries, I'll be there."
The brief...
Do you know just how hard it is to go to Mass once a week and on a handful more days each year? Judging by the questions the apologists at Catholic Answers receive on the subject, you would think that trying to find a Catholic church at which a Catholic can attend Mass is as difficult a venture as manned space flight to Mars.
When I first started answering this question, I assured each questioner that if it is truly impossible to get to a church for Mass on a Sunday or holy day of...
A textbook used for confirmation preparation in a parish in California teaches students that the sacrament of confirmation “only came into existence in the third century” and that “there was no sacrament of penance in the early church”. I suppose such sacramental ignorance is not surprising given that a deacon who instructs catechists in the same diocese teaches that at one time there were only two sacraments and, at another time, twenty two.
The Church teaches very clearly that the...
“Thank you for the work that you do. This March will mark my third year back in the Catholic Church. By God's grace, he brought me back using Catholic Answers Live and EWTN. I will be forever grateful."
"That is our desire, to be tortured for Our Lord, Jesus Christ, and so to be saved, for that will give us salvation and firm confidence at the more terrible universal tribunal of Our Lord and Savior."
