Catholic Church

By Jim Graves, EWTN News - Habited nuns praying in unison… The sounds of Catholic life in the convent were once largely confined to the sisters and local faithful near the motherhouse of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, Michigan… Now the sisters’ communal prayer can be heard by a wider audience amid the COVID-19 pandemic… The Dominican Sisters of Mary, a teaching community, which, in recent years, has branched out to provide Catholic content online, has begun livestreaming Masses and prayers.

By Fr. Robert P. Imbelli, The Catholic Thing - In the often-mindless wake of Vatican II, many tried mightily to tame the sting of death. We substituted the funereal black vestments of our Requiem Masses with multi-colored stoles. We banished the “Dies Irae” to the soothingly aesthetic precincts of the concert hall through an occasional performance of Mozart’s “Requiem” – stripped of its vital ecclesial context. We blithely proclaimed that we were “an Alleluia People,” eclipsing pleas for mercy and forgiveness by emotional celebrations of lives well-lived. And so we are woefully unprepared for our present plight.

By Edward Pentin, EWTN News - “When evening had come” (Mk 4:35). The Gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm.

By Dom Cingoranelli, Catholic Stand - Between our human condition and the work of the evil one, we face many obstacles on our path to holiness. We can and must overcome the obstacles, though. St. John of the Cross tells us that a bird tied down to earth can’t fly; it doesn’t matter if it’s tied down with a thread or a rope. An attachment is still an attachment, no matter how great or how small. Some of them are greater than others, but they all impede our progress along the narrow path. Self-awareness through prayerful discernment and spiritual direction can show us where we need to focus first. Prayer and ongoing accountability through spiritual direction can help us gradually cut those threads or ropes that are holding us back from Our Lord and Savior.