Do we ever really understand or master prayer? Yes and no. When we try to pray, sometimes we walk on water and sometimes we sink like a stone. Sometimes we have a deep sense of God's reality and sometimes we can't even imagine that God exists.
The Youth of the Middle East rise up for basic freedoms.The Youth of London rise up for a HD ready 42" Plasma TV. That seems to be a consensus view and not many people are now trying to blame the rioting on "the cuts". Unless we recover some basic Christian values in our society it will happen again and probably more seriously during some summer soon.
As Jurgens Moltmann puts it, our faith begins at the exact point where atheists think it must end, in the taste of nothingness, in emptiness, in darkness, and in the complete powerless to imagine God's existence or affectively sense God's presence. In that emptiness and powerless, God can finally begin to flow into our lives purely, untainted, unaffected by our own needs, expectations, and imaginative constructs.
At no cost, our amateur writers and reporters can become effective voices for our good news. This is the vocation of the Church expressed within the framework of the social media. We will need to become as expert in new media as we have become in the old.
The fact that Catholic Social Teaching has something solid and significant to say about such contemporary crises as these shows how much it has come of age. This derives from the fruitful dialogue in recent years between the guardians of the social teaching tradition and the secular social sciences, in this case channelled through the Pontifical Council for Social Sciences
Many Catholics—including parents, kids, and clergy—find that social media has become an essential component of their faith lives, and they’re willing to put up with the pitfalls to utilize the positives.
Kate Shellnut at the Houston Chronicle reports that traveling into orbit is indeed a spiritual experience, finding believers among the ranks of our country's spacefarers. I would imagine that strapping yourself on top of a giant pile of rocket fuel would inspire prayer, but it seems the views from space are even more soul-expanding.
Our interest in the birth of this new Nation springs from the fact that we are all part of the community of nations, and that, as Claretian Missionaries, we are involved in the so called "South Sudan Project", where, together with many other Catholic Institutes and Organisations, train teachers and nurses who can make a difference in this new country.
“They say there’s no atheists in foxholes, but there’s probably no atheists in rockets,” said Catholic astronaut Col. Mike Good, who believes his faith in God was solidified by the awe-inspiring views he saw from space. From the famous astronauts who pioneered space exploration to the crews on the final space shuttle missions, faith has been a driving force in NASA history.
At any given moment, inside us, we are a mixture of light and darkness, sincerity and hypocrisy, selflessness and selfishness, virtue and vice, grace and sin, saint and sinner. As Henri Nouwen used to say: We want to be great saints, but we also don't want to miss out on all the sensations that sinners experience. And so our lives aren't simple.
Having arrived at what they described as a “broad consensus”, representatives of 90 per cent of the world’s Christians have published guidelines on how to conduct relations with each other and with members of other faiths.
It’s common, particularly among religious commentators, to describe the human heart as small, narrow, and petty: How small-hearted and petty we are! I find this distressing because religious thinkers especially should know better. We are not created by God and put in this earth with small, narrow, and petty hearts. The opposite is true.
I recently posed a question on my Twitter and Facebook pages to a variety of youth ministers asking, “What things do you wish someone told you before you became a youth minister?” After receiving a variety of responses, it was evident that there were many recurring themes.
Those who argue in favour of assisted suicide always mention the pain and discomfort of the sick as reasons for it, and nobody opposed to assisted suicide should disregard the physical and mental suffering that many people endure. But how did we get to the situation where assisted suicide rather than alleviation of pain is the solution?
Am I happy? Is my life a happy one? Am happy inside my marriage? Am I happy with my family? Am I happy in my job? Am I happy with my church? Am I happy inside my own skin? Are these good questions to ask ourselves? No.
Why is the legend of King Arthur such a compelling one in culture? For a man who may or may not have wandered Britain some 1,500 years ago, King Arthur retains the enviable knack of making his regal presence felt. Modern historians might query whether there is any real evidence for his existence, but none doubt his lasting hold over the popular imagination.
We are saved by the death of Jesus! All Christians believe this. This is a central tenet within the Christian faith and the center of almost all Christian iconography. Jesus' death on a cross changed history forever. But how does this work?
In his social encyclical Caritas in Veritate, Pope Benedict presented the global economic crisis as an opportunity to shape a new vision for the future. Here, the president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace sets out the steps to realising that vision
In a wide-ranging lecture on the subject of 'Faith in Education', to be given at Guildford Cathedral on the evening of 11 March 2011, Archbishop Vincent Nichols will say that the study of Religion 'is an invaluable help in the project of building the common good and of self-fulfilment.
Today’s gospel tells us of the start of the public life of Jesus. We can’t have a more humble or simple beginning. It was nothing like the great ceremonies that we like to do these days to mark the beginning of great events.
