The story of the rich man and Lazarus is more than a bracing reminder about our duty to the poor; it is a cautionary tale about misjudging our spiritual condition. In Jesus’s day, material wealth and well-being were commonly assumed to be divine blessings for personal righteousness: the
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Diocese of Orange, California, received an early Christmas present in the form of a new bishop Dec. 19, when a man who entered the country as a young refugee from Vietnam in 1973 became its new auxiliary bishop. Bishop Thanh Thai
John the Baptist’s ministry was a call to repentance, the renunciation of sin as prophesized by Isaiah: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.”(Mt 3:3) The Ten Commandments provide the moral baseline, with the First Commandment chief among them: “I am the Lord
WASHINGTON — For close to 70 years, the Catholic Church has been quietly involved on the island of Taiwan, working in the vineyards as an existential geopolitical question about the island’s status — is it an independent nation or a piece of mainland China? — hums in
If you’re anything like me, you have a love-hate relationship with New Year’s resolutions. Oh, you like the idea of course. Who doesn’t fantasize about completely overhauling one’s life with one simple choice? But as most of us know from experience, it’s not that easy.
In the neon-lit hellholes of the developing world, young women dressed as sex workers keep a wary eye on the street. Would-be customers who approach them will get nowhere – for these women are not prostitutes but undercover Catholic nuns risking their lives to rescue
In 1949, former Chinese President Chiang Kai-shek, having lost a civil war to Mao Zedong, retreated to the island of Taiwan, given to him four years earlier by the Allies that defeated its Japanese occupiers. One million people and 800,000 troops came, too. Among them
An engineer with a serious knee condition once went to confession to Padre Pio merely out of curiosity, but not out of any religious desire to receive the sacrament. He was an intellectual, he told Padre Pio. He believed in God, but the idea of
Last month the much-anticipated Museum of the Bible opened in Washington DC. The project is the brainchild of the Green family—evangelical Christians and owners of Hobby Lobby. Josh Shepherd recently offered a comprehensive look at the details, scholarship, and history of the museum. With the bold mission to
In this season of the Church calendar the Rosary should loom large for every Catholic. Nativity imagery will abound at all churches depicting the birth of Christ in the manger. But the importance of Mary within the story of the incarnation of Christ is something that
Praying the Rosary
Familiarize yourself with the prayers of the rosary.
