The sawed-off four-metre wooden crucifix was carefully lowered to the ground at the entrance to the cemetery. 

Faith isn’t something you ever simply achieve. It’s not something that you ever nail down as a fait accompli. Faith works this way: Some days you walk on water and other days you sink like a stone. Faith invariably gives way to doubt before it again recovers its confidence, then it loses it again. 

SEOSAN, South Korea - Pope Francis told young Asian Catholic leaders to witness to Christ in everything they do.

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time Aug. 10, (1 Kings 19:9, 11-13; Psalm 85; Romans 9:1-5; Matthew 14:22-33) 

To many people God seems absent from our world. Often it is difficult to discern the presence of God in one’s own life. Part of the reason is that our perception of God is filtered through far too many expectations. We have set ideas about how God is to be revealed and they are usually dramatic, flashy and filled with displays of power — all fine material for Hollywood biblical epics. Compounding the problem is the tendency of ancient peoples to assign manifestations of nature to the immediate hand of God. Our scientific understanding of the natural order would prevent most of us from seeing the hand of God in an earthquake, hurricane or tsunami. 

There’s a story in the Hindu tradition that runs something like this: God and a man are walking down a road. The man asks God: “What is the world like?” God answers: “I’d like to tell you, but my throat is parched. I need a cup of cold water. If you can go and get me a cup of cold water, I’ll tell you what the world is like.” The man heads off to the nearest house to ask for a cup of cold water. He knocks on the door and it is opened by a beautiful young woman. He asks for a cup of cold water. She answers: “I will gladly get it for you, but it’s just time for the noon meal, why don’t you come in first and eat.” He does.

BETHLEHEM - Hospitals are mostly in the habit of receiving patients. In Bethlehem, Holy Family Hospital also receives pilgrims.

VATICAN CITY - Underscoring the close ties between Christianity and Judaism and calling Holocaust denial “madness,” Pope Francis told an interviewer that “inside every Christian is a Jew.”

VATICAN CITY - A Vatican spokesman said it’s premature to suggest a gathering between Catholic and Orthodox faiths to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the first Church council held in Nicea in 325.

TORONTO - In the six months since Typhoon Haiyan stripped thousands of Filipinos of everything they have, there is one thing that it couldn’t destroy: the people’s hope and faith in God. 

TORONTO - The adage that seeing is believing is being questioned by recent science that suggests the opposite may also be true: believing is seeing.

Young people can head to the beach this spring for a festival of faith, justice and do-it-yourself activities. From May 29 to June 1, people of all ages will descend on the Silver Lake Mennonite Camp in Sauble Beach, Ont., for the Cahoots festival.

TORONTO - Science and faith, contrary to popular belief, are not at odds with one another, says Fr. John McCarthy.

The 12th-century Persian poet Rumi submits that we live with a deep secret that sometimes we know, and then not.

VATICAN CITY - Blesseds John XXIII and John Paul II left lasting marks on the way the Catholic Church understands other religions and the way it interacts with believers of other faith communities.

VATICAN CITY - Blessed John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council in the conviction that it was necessary for the Catholic Church, yet without pre-conceived ideas of what it would accomplish, said Vatican II participants who recalled the event half a century later.