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| Susan Swanke |
When Jesus appeared to St. Faustina and shared his message of Divine Mercy, the words he instructed her to put at the bottom of his image were, “Jesus, I trust in you.”
No subtle hint. Jesus wants us to trust him. Why is it so important to him that we trust him? Surely, it’s not because he needs our trust for his good.
In fact, God needs nothing. It must be for our good that he gives this command. |
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Victor Frankl, a world-famous Austrian psychiatrist, who survived a Nazi concentration camp noticed that those who survived the camp tended to have something or someone to live for!
Hence the expression, “A person with a why can live with any how!”
Christ was born to bring hope to us, to make life more meaningful in this world, and then offer us the hope of Eternity.
On my nephew’s birthday long ago, when I was sleeping over at my sister’s house, I was awakened by my wide-eyed nephew tearing through the house.
There is a saying in the seminary: “As the seminarian, so the priest.” While I have thought about this phrase many times during my years in formation, it has recently taken on a new light.
This Lent, my parish has been focusing on the character of Simon of Cyrene along Jesus’ walk to Calvary.
Ash Wednesday marked the most I had seen people in church since the lockdown and since the beginning of our reopening efforts.
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“Look!” my husband said proudly one evening. “I fixed it for you!”
He held up my favorite handheld kitchen tool, the stainless-steel pastry cutter, and pulled on it to illustrate that he had fixed its broken handle.
To his dismay, the handle pulled apart in his hand.
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A college student wrote in her school newspaper that sometimes she wished that she were a Catholic. She explained that if she were a Catholic, when she sinned, she could go to confession like her Catholic classmates and say, “Father, I sinned. I am sorry!”
The priest would then give her a penance. She would do the penance and feel forgiven.
She added, “But I’m not a Catholic. When I sin, I don’t confess to a priest. I confess directly to God.”
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Death: Our Birth into Eternal life Damian Lenshek |
The following article is the next installment in a series that will appear in the Catholic Herald to offer catechesis and formation concerning end of life decisions, dying, death, funerals, and burial of the dead from the Catholic perspective.
St. Anthony the Great had a problem. He was 105 years old, he lived in fourth-century Egypt, and he was famous.
He did not want to be embalmed. But the common practice at the death of eminent personages such as himself was to preserve them, pose them on couches, and to keep them in their houses.
This was intended to honor the deceased. |
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Lent is the Church’s primary penitential season. It is the season of conversion when we seek to become more Christ-like by choosing a Lenten penance which helps us to renew our Baptismal promises at Easter with a deepened faith.
The three traditional practices of Lent are prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. A genuine commitment to these practices leads to a deepened awareness of God and conversion of the heart. Since the family is the domestic Church, in this article I will focus on some ways that we can live Lent as a domestic family. Some of these ways may also apply to the extended family and the Church family.