Saints

This is one of those years where it’s striking me particularly hard that May is Mary’s month.
As busy, as crazy, as chaotic as it is, it’s Mary’s month.
As hare-brained as I am, as filled to the max with…

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May is Mary’s Month.
This has been a custom in the Church dating back many centuries. And it is beautiful to associate Mary with the coming of Spring and the new birth of flowers and plants and crops in…

Imagine a world where no Christian is named for St. Joseph, where no church or religious organization bears his name. Picture St. Joseph absent from the Mass, the Breviary, the Church calendar, and the Litany of the Saints. No shrines,…

I have a huge devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but I’m impeded by a lack of design skill (or interest, really) and a streak of laziness that allows me to be overwhelmed at the drop of a flower.
Last…

Finding St. Francis

by Stephen Beale March 21, 2013

St. Francis of Assisi today is often thought of in revolutionary, avant-garde images: the merchant’s son who stripped naked in public to renounce his worldly possessions and attachments, the mystic who preached to the birds, the friar who embraced lepers,…

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Why I Hate St. Patrick’s Day

by Amanda Teixeira March 15, 2013

Imagine that you grew up uneducated. In your teenage years, you were kidnapped and sold into slavery in a foreign land. Your family was gone. You submitted to your masters and relied on God through this struggle, growing leaps and…

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St. Barbara, A Martyr Who May Not Have Ever Existed

by Barbara Soares March 7, 2013

My parents named me after Saint Barbara, a martyr who may not have ever existed. Though this saint was venerated by many in earlier centuries, her feast day was removed from the liturgical calendar in 1969. Even so, Saint Barbara’s…

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Fearless and Fiery: the Letters of Catherine of Siena

by Judy Keane February 18, 2013

In today’s world of Facebook, text messaging, tweets and instagrams – receiving a hand written letter imbued with deep spiritual sentiment and edifying insight is a rare thing indeed.  In fact, it would be rare to ever receive such a…

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A Man for This Season, and All Seasons

by Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap. December 27, 2012

A day after the 2012 Summer Olympics closed in London, Joseph Pearce wrote that he felt like his “body had been covered in slime. I also felt a great sense of gratitude that I had shaken the smut and dirt…

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The Cause of Paul VI Proceeds… But What of Pius XII?

by Dr. Robert Moynihan December 20, 2012

A week ago, the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints voted in favor of Pope Paul VI’s “heroic virtue.” This clears the way for Paul’s beatification (though a miracle still must be approved). Paul’s beatification could occur during 2013,…

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