"God makes promises and keeps them, and these promises are about love for us. During every challenge, every disappointment, I have held on to this." Carolyn Woo grew up in Hong Kong, a city of refugees who had fled from the communist government in China, as her own parents had done. Relatives crashed on their couches and brutal stories of Red Guards filtered through, but the ferment of the time fueled a drive to create opportunities. Was ...
"The Church cannot be understood without women…" – Pope Francis, July 28, 2013 In the new book Promise and Challenge, ten diverse Catholic women – theologians, philosophers, attorneys, and an economist – answer Pope Francis' call to address the deeper questions about the meaning of womanhood and the role of women in the Church. Based on their presentations at the 2014 Symposium on Women in the Church, these women help move the co ...
"You may want to live like a bachelor, but those days are behind you, chief. " So says the man in the mirror on those days when he just wants to hang out with his buddies and sip good bourbon or sit on the couch and watch an action movie. «Snap out of it.» This internal dialogue isn't foreign to most husbands or dads – including the eight regular guys who share their stories in The Joys and Challenges of Family Life: Catholic Hu ...
"The Sacraments are not mere appearances, they are not rituals; they are the power of Christ; Jesus Christ is present in the Sacraments." – Pope Francis Baptism, Confirmation, the Eucharist, Holy Matrimony, Reconciliation, Holy Orders, and the Anointing of the Sick – as Catholics we are familiar with the sacraments, and see them as mileposts in our lives. But, as Pope Francis so energetically reminds us, they are not simply observances ...
"The Church is called to be the house of the Father, with doors always wide open." – Pope Francis, The Joy of the Gospel In this groundbreaking nationwide study of Hispanic ministries in U.S. parishes, Dr. Hosffman Ospino describes not only the reality of the Church in the United States today, but the Church it is becoming. With 40 percent of the Catholic population in the United States claiming Hispanic roots, and the possibility that ...
"And they lived happily ever after." Only in fairy tales, you say. But there is life after the honeymoon-messy, challenging, happily-married life. That's the great promise of Catholic marriage, and if you're married or considering marriage the joy is there for you, too. Many Catholics today share the culture's unease-fear of divorce, the prevalence of cohabitation, the wounds of past relationships all conspire to make til ...
"Come to Me" – Matt 11:28 Jesus told us, «Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.» His promise of rest begins with a gentle request – to come to Him. But where do we find him? How do we draw closer to Jesus? What does it mean for our lives? And what do we really find when we go to Him? Susan Conroy, author and well-known host of the popular EWTN television series Coming to Christ – the inspiration for ...
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." – Matthew 7:7 Asking, seeking, and knocking are three imperatives Jesus gave his disciples, and us, in order to grow fully in our Faith and be true disciples of Jesus. Scripture reading and study is an important part of that path to discipleship, and offers us opportunities… to ask – for clarityto seek – the truths of the Bibleto knock – ...
"Are we still a Church capable of warming hearts? A Church capable of leading people back to Jerusalem? Of bringing them home?" – Pope Francis, Meeting with the Bishops of Brazil, 28 July 2013.</p><p>Pope Francis, like his predecessors Benedict XVI and John Paul II, is calling for Catholics to embrace the new evangelization. But there has been ongoing confusion about who is responsible, what it really means and what it looks lik ...
