In his memoirs, Treasure in Clay, Bishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979) tells of giving instructions in the Catholic Faith to a young woman. During the lesson on confession, the young woman suddenly jumped from her chair and yelled at Bishop Sheen that she would never become Catholic because of what he had told her about confession. Sheen waited for her to finish...
In the Q&A department here at Catholic Answers, year in and year out we get what I like to think of as the seasonal questions. At Christmas someone will ask "What time is the midnight Mass?" (No kidding, and not as obvious an answer as you might think in many American parishes.) At Halloween, someone will want to know if the holiday is pagan. And, at Lent, not just "someone" but everyone seems to ask "Why do Catholics eat fish on the Fridays of Lent?"
The short answer has...
As an unrepentant history geek, I've often wondered about the less than saintly descendants of saints. Sometimes we don't have to wonder, because the saints' relationships with their immediate families are part of what demanded their heroic virtue.
Venerable Cornelia Connelly (1809-1879) was the wife of a Protestant minister who decided to convert to Catholicism and become a Catholic priest....
By nature I tend to be a rather contrary person. Or, as my father sometimes put it, I tend to end up "crosswise in the door" when told that a particular direction is one in which I must go. Perhaps then it is no surprise that I kind of liked wearing a veil to Mass . . . until I was told I had to do it. Ever since then the subject makes me bristle.
The first time I wore a headcovering to Mass was soon after my conversion in 1996. A friend invited me to a diocesan-approved Tridentine...
On the first Sunday of Lent I attended Mass at the local Carmelite monastery rather than at my parish church, so this past Sunday was the first time I had seen my parish church transformed for Lent. As I looked about the sanctuary, I sighed.
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal states:
During Lent it is forbidden for the...
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"Could I but know all, I would have the faith of a peasant woman."
