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Category: Believe

Pope Benedict has been giving, during his weekly General Audiences, an extraordinary series of short talks about the Church, the Apostles and the Church Fathers. What better guide can we have to the early history of the Church.

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

Following the Catecheses on the Psalms and Canticles of Lauds and of Vespers, I would like to dedicate the upcoming Wednesday Audiences to the mystery of the relationship between Christ and the Church, reflecting upon it from the experience of the Apostles, in light of the duty entrusted to them.

The Church was built on the foundation of the Apostles as a community of faith, hope and charity. Through the Apostles, we come to Jesus himself. The Church begins to establish herself when some fishermen of Galilee meet Jesus, allowing themselves to be won over by his gaze, his voice, his warm and strong invitation:  "Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men" (Mk 1: 17; Mt 4: 19).

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Category: Believe

Via Fr Tim Finigan's blog, the Hermeneutic of Continuity , ten suggestions for Advent as we prepare for the feast of our Saviour's birth.

1. Go to Confession
2. Have some daily family prayers
3. Buy Christmas cards that portray a scene from the Nativity of Christ.

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Category: Believe

Well, what do Catholics believe? Reading the press or watching TV you might think that it doesn’t stretch much past some weird old-fashioned shibboleths about sex (gosh, you mean they don’t think it’s all right to sleep with whoever you want?) and babies (don’t you know it’s just a clump of cells?). And it’s true, these are important parts of Catholic belief. But they’re not what comes first. In fact, there’s no great secret to Catholic belief at all: it’s proclaimed at each Mass, you know in that bit that begins ‘We believe in one God…’ The Creed. There we have the core of our faith, and from this all else flows.

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Category: Believe
The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden. GK Chesterton .