Jeanie Hannaman

By Bill Kifer, Catholic Exchange - Every year about nine months before the Solemnity of the Nativity, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation. In Against Heresies (Book III, Chapter 22), St. Irenaeus describes Mary’s fiat to the Archangel Gabriel as the act that undoes the knot of Eve’s disobedience. In disobeying God, both Adam and Eve bequeathed to their descendants the three-fold concupiscence St. John identifies in his first epistle: Lust of the Flesh, Lust of the Eyes, and the Pride of Life (1 John 2:16).

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture - What’s wrong with the Vatican statement on the Olympic blasphemy? Nearly everything... In fact the Vatican (deliberately?) missed the essential point. The statement went on to “deplore the offense caused to many Christians and believers of other religions,” and later referred to “allusions ridiculing the religious convictions of many people.”

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Catholic Culture - God destined man in original holiness to be fully “divinized” in glory. (CCC 398) God places the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” in the Garden of Paradise. The tree is His first covenant, honoring man’s freedom. The Tree of Life sustains the bliss of our First Parents. After the self-destructive fall of Adam and Eve, everlasting life would include unspeakable pain and horror. God’s withdrawal of the Tree of Life mercifully permits death (but only by the hand of God) to limit suffering. We continue to seek the Tree of Life on our terms.