Catholic Church

By Christopher Carstens, National Catholic Register - Fifteen years ago, Pope St. John Paul II made “amazement” the motive force of his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia (The Eucharist in Its Relationship to the Church)... He recalls at the letter’s start how the Paschal Mystery of Jesus is “concentrated” and made perennially present in each celebration of the Eucharist. That is, Jesus’ suffering, death, resurrection and ascension are not lost to the past but are really and substantially present at every Mass.

By Msgr. Charles Pope - The first reading from last Sunday’s Mass features an excerpt from St. Peter’s first sermon. The contents of the sermon are very similar to others recorded in the Acts of the Apostles by Saints Paul and Stephen. What is interesting is that these ancient sermons break almost every rule (written and unwritten) of modern preaching!

By David Mills, The Stream - Knowing Jesus: Conversion to Christ, believing in the Gospel, ultimately means this: to exit the illusion of self-sufficiency in order to discover and accept one’s own need — the need of others and God, the need of His forgiveness and His friendship.

By Doug Mainwaring, LifeSiteNews - The just-released apostolic exhortation on holiness, Gaudete et Exsultate is stirring up controversy and seems to take aim at some of the Pope’s critics in the Church… “Because of the divisions which have gotten worse under this papacy,” said Faith & Reason Institute President Robert Royal, when Pope Francis “puts out a document like this which is largely good, we can’t read it without suspicions, or ... controversy.”