St. Augustine explains how we can rejoice and even delight in something that we can’t yet see and don’t yet possess. In so doing, he helps us understand better the power of the theological virtue of hope....
[dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']A[/dropcaps]wake, mankind! For your sake God has become man. Awake, you who sleep, rise up from the dead, and Christ will enlighten you. I tell you again: for your sake, God became man. You would have suffered eternal death, had he...
Augustine here notes that we wayfarers should sing alleluia as we make our journey through constant temptation, trial and danger toward our heavenly homeland where we our song will be sung without anxiety, temptation or toil....
[dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']T[/dropcaps]hough I like many can’t help but roll my eyes over the popularity of the Da Vinci Code, we are indebted to Dan Brown in a way. For he has reminded us that the early Church is terribly important. On...
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...
[dropcaps type='normal' font_size='65' color='' background_color='' border_color='']W[/dropcaps]e do not know the time when earth and humanity will reach their completion, nor do we know the way in which the universe will be transformed. The world as we see it, disfigured by sin, is...
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....
Senator James Harlan of Iowa, whose daughter later married President Lincoln's son Robert, introduced this Resolution in the Senate on March 2, 1863. The Resolution asked President Lincoln to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting. The Resolution was adopted on March 3, and...
[dropcaps type='normal' font_size='100' color='' background_color='' border_color='']T[/dropcaps]he kingdom of God, in the words of our Lord and Savior, does not come for all to see; nor shall they say: Behold, here it is, or behold, there it is; but the kingdom of God is within us, for...
The symbolic meaning of the sacrament of baptism according to Cyril of Jerusalem, bishop of Jerusalem in the middle of the fourth century and one of the most important sources we have for how the church celebrated the sacraments during that era. In his...