David Spesia Jesus’ entire existence was Eucharistic. If you and I are going to live as his disciples and respond wholeheartedly to the gift of his grace, our lives need to be marked by a Eucharistic dynamic. Dynamic This Eucharistic dynamic is as simple as it is profound. It emerges most clearly on the night…
Effie Caldarola As a small child, I was a bit of a religious nerd. I’m not sure why, but I was the oldest child, the only daughter, and our little Catholic mission parish in farm country was central to our lives. From a young age, faith intrigued me. Case in point: I remember taking…
The Catholic Worker co-founder went from a danger to souls to future saint, writes Russell Shaw In one of his more snarky stories about clerical life – it’s called The Forks – the American Catholic writer JF Powers capsulises the fraught relationship between a stuffy, self-important pastor and his young curate in a single, prickly…
Joseph D. White A child’s First Communion is an important and exciting milestone in the life of a Catholic family. As the first and most important teachers of their children, parents present their children for baptism and guide them toward Christ as they are initiated into the church community. Handing on our faith to the…
Laura Kelly Fanucci The first thing I noticed about our parish was the music. Everyone sang. From the moment the opening hymn began, the sanctuary was filled with a robust chorus. I looked around and couldn’t believe my eyes (or ears) – adults, children, women and men were all singing at full voice.I grew up…
Jesus keeps ‘left’ and ‘right’ in balance, writes Elizabeth Scalia A discussion among practicing Catholics occurred in a social media group, inevitably landing on current divisions between Catholics – those who would describe themselves as ‘orthodox’ vs the ‘more progressive;’ those who pronounce themselves ‘proudly cafeteria’ versus those who identify as ‘proudly traditionalist’.…
Phil Lenahan In word and deed, Pope Francis continues to encourage Catholics to reach out to the poor and not succumb to a consumerist mentality where what we have is deemed more important than who we are. The season of Lent provides a special opportunity to take the Holy Father’s words to heart and live…
My heart started beating faster and my face flushed when I glanced at the messages popping up in text bubbles on my phone one early morning last March. “Are you at work?” one asked. “Can you let me know when you are there?” another said. “Uh-oh,” I thought. “Someone died.” Stepping away from a conversation…
Christians know the life of a disciple will not be easy. Christ did not mince words about this – telling his disciples they must take on life’s sufferings as in the form of capital punishment that would later be used to take his life: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself…
Scott P. Richert Every year, for over 40 years now, I have given up watching TV for Lent. I know it’s no longer fashionable to give something up for Lent; instead, we are urged to ‘do something positive’, something that will make a difference in our spiritual life or (preferably, it seems) in the corporal…