Catholic. Pastoral. Trusted.
By Frank R. Iacono In a spot experience I had awhile ago, I was drawn to see and consider the merits of divine faith in elevating life. On that particular day, I had just about ended my usual visit to a family relation at her nursing residence. Before leaving,...
Christians keep vigils. They give us an important way to live our faith daily. They allows us to reshape time, put down the clock and encounter God. To keep vigil means that we have a purpose for watching and waiting. To be vigilant requires a level of endurance and patience. It invites us into...
Written by: Nanci Mascia When life’s mountains come your way There is one thing I can say. Take the hand of the one you love, And climb each threshold, Till you’re high above As you climb, your tears will flow And as you stumble, you’ll feel, you can’t go on...
A look at what Jesus said and did as he taught, especially about and in relationship to women. And what do today’s women do to bring Jesus’ teachings into action? At the core of the New Testament we find the kerygma: the proclamation of what Jesus Christ did. The confession that Jesus...
The Church made an unexpected statement about the Blessed Virgin Mary during the Second Vatican Council. At this meeting of bishops, Church leaders referred to Mary’s life as a pilgrimage of faith, a theme Blessed John Paul II explored and further developed in his encyclical letter Mother of the Redeemer, as he spoke of the Church’s faith pilgrimage.
This reference to Mary’s faith journey was unexpected because pilgrimage implies movement toward a goal, and prior to the Second Vatican Council, the Church rarely thought of the Virgin Mary as progressing in her faith. This point is important because even the deepest faith does not bring clear knowledge of the ways in which God sustains and accompanies our lives and our world. Blessed John Paul II tells us that faith at times involves a perplexity, a heaviness of heart, such as that described by Saint John of the Cross as a dark night of faith in which our understanding is clouded or tested.