The central document of the Second Vatican Council was Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. The heart of this document its teaching in chapter five that the call to holiness is not limited to any one state in life, but is indeed universal,...
Death is both a mystery and an enigma say the fathers of the Second Vatican Council. This moving treatment of death and dying is an excerpt from one of the more important of the Council documents, the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern...
The Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, known by its informal Latin title Dei Verbum, was one of the last documents to be approved by the Second Vatican Council and solemnly promulgated by Pope Paul VI on November 18, 1965. It deals with the sensitive topics...
The following are excerpts from Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium) that pertain to the Mass and the sacrament of the eucharist. [dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']I[/dropcaps]NTRODUCTION For it is the liturgy through which, especially in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist,...
Vatican II on the ways Christ is really present in the liturgy and why liturgical prayer has an excellence that surpasses all other devotions and activities of the Church....
The Second Vatican Council points out that it is only the return of Our Lord Jesus Christ that will bring the Church on earth, the universal sacrament of salvation, to perfection and cause the renewal and restoration of the entire earth. This is what we...
The Second Vatican Council here speaks of need of all human activity to find purification and perfection through the paschal mystery of the cross and resurrection of Christ....
The Second Vatican Council here teaches that peace is not just an absence of war but is a fruit of justice and love. It can never be established by law alone but depends on virtue that grows and is maintained by constant effort in...
This excerpt from Gaudium et Spes, Vatican II's Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, affirms the sanctity of marriage and the family....
his famous excerpt from Lumen Gentium nos. 4 & 12, Vatican II's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, deals with the person, mission, and gifts or charisms of the Holy Spirit. It speaks too of the sensus fidei, the instinct of faith or anointing given to...