The Forgotten Church: 5 Reasons to Pray for the Souls in Purgatory

“Purgatory shows God’s great mercy and washes away the defects of those who long to become one with Him.” – St. Josemaria Escriva When is the last time you heard a homily on purgatory? If your parish is like most, it’s been a very long time. Getting more personal, when is the last time you…

Testimonies From the Heroic Minute Challenge

Many, many thanks to all who participated in the 14 Day “Heroic Minute” Challenge. I’d like to share with you some testimonies from people’s experience with the challenge. God truly cannot be outdone in generosity. When we set our minds to knowing, loving and serving him from the moment our eyes first open in the…

The Heroic Minute Challenge: Day 14: 7 Lessons Learned from the Heroic Minute

I would like to sincerely thank everyone who participated in the 14 Day “Heroic Minute” Challenge. Honestly, I really had no clue how things would go when the challenge began. I just knew that I personally needed to work on incorporating some self-discipline and order into my daily life. I have always loved St. Josemarie…

Your Wife is Wearing What? Men, Veils, and the Mystery of Femininity

The strangest thing happened a few months ago. My wife covered her head during Mass. I’ll never forget the moment when I first glanced up to see her noble cranium veiled in a strange and beautiful cut of lace. Whoa. Years earlier, my good friend Sam (the man behind the wheel of this Catholic Gentleman…

The Heroic Minute Challenge: Day 13: One Small Act at a Time

Prior to reading St. Josemarie Escriva’s description of the first moment of the day as the Heroic Minute, I never considered this seemingly insignificant act of getting up in the morning as a key battle in the war between virtue and vice; good and evil; light and darkness that goes on in the soul of…

Question About Baruch

A reader writes:A Protestant coworker is asking me questions about the seven “extra” books in the Catholic Bible. He recently asked me why in the book of Baruch it says that the Babylonian captivity would last seven generations when in Jeremiah it says it would last 70 years. I could not find an answer to…

“God is not a divine being”

There’s the latest panic attack source for Reactionaries filled with the dread that, say what Pollyanna fools like me will, the pope is a heretic. The remark (not sure how accurately translated, since the Italian is “demiurgo” and looks to me like “demiurge” is meant) comes from his comments on evolution the other day:“God is not…

The Itch to Scapegoat

As the Ebola epidemic unspools, one of the phenomena that reliably rears its head among humans terrified for their own skins is scapegoating. Whether it is foolish Liberian bishops blaming the plague on homosexuals or demagogic FOX news talking hairdos seeking to drive all victims from our soil in mindless panic, the pattern is the…

God sends us stupid bishops…

…so we will have somebody to pray for. Bishops like Archbishop Lewis Zeigler of Monrovia, Liberia, who helpfully tells his suffering flock that Ebola is divine punishment for homosexuality.File under: Not Helping.