Faith

The ‘Our Father’ is the cornerstone of our prayer life

June 16, 2016

Pope Francis said that prayers are not magic words for Christians and when we pray the ‘Our Father’ we can feel God looking at us and this prayer should be the cornerstone of our prayer life. His words came during his mass celebrated on Thursday morning in the chapel of the Santa Marta residence.

Parish renewal conference draws worldwide audience to Halifax

June 15, 2016

HALIFAX – Size doesn’t really matter. That’s the hymn book Fr. James Mallon sings from and one of the principles he pushed at a two-day Divine Renovation conference that attracted more than 600 people from 11 countries to his city and his church in mid-June. “Size is a relative thing, it depends on who you are standing beside,” said the slight, 5-foot-7, 164-pound priestly dynamo.

Praying for our enemies can heal our hearts

June 14, 2016

Praying for our enemies can heal our hearts: that was Pope Francis’ message at Mass in the Casa Santa Marta chapel on Tuesday morning. Recalling his own childhood in Argentina, when people prayed that dictators would go to hell, the Pope recalled how Jesus himself tells us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.

Text from the Jubilee of the Sick and Disabled Mass

June 13, 2016

Pope Francis has decried the pursuit for perfect bodies, saying it leads to society hiding away the disabled to avoid offending the sensibilities of what he described as “the privileged few.”

St. Anthony a link in the interfaith chain

June 12, 2016

TORONTO – St. Anthony of Padua is known as the miracle worker saint. Many people ask for his intercession for the loss of material things, but also for loss of peace of mind or sense of direction. Those who seek his help are never lost, forgotten or left behind.

Sisters who also are mothers bring new perspectives to religious life

June 11, 2016

GLENMOORE, Pa. – The way Sister Rita Cameron sees it, her grandchildren didn't lose a grandmother when she became a sister. They gained 106 great-aunts.

Pope elevates memorial of St. Mary Magdalene to feast day

June 11, 2016

VATICAN CITY – Recognizing St. Mary Magdalene's role as the first to witness Christ's resurrection and as a "true and authentic evangelizer," Pope Francis raised the July 22 memorial of St. Mary Magdalene to a feast on the Church's liturgical calendar, the Vatican announced.

One year later 'Laudato Si' gets to the heart of the matter

June 11, 2016

Revolution was once a bad word — even The Beatles were against it. But ever since the late Steve Jobs got hold of it and applied it to every new gadget to come off the Apple assembly line, the word has lost its threat and most of its meaning.

The lesson of Elijah: listen and act on the voice of God

June 10, 2016

Pope Francis celebrated Mass in the chapel of the Casa Santa Marta on Friday morning. In remarks to the faithful following the Readings of the Day, the Holy Father focused on three attitudes that are characteristic of the Christian: “standing” before God in “silence” to hear His voice and readiness to “go out” into the world to proclaim what one has heard to others. The Pope also warned against the danger of paralyzing fear in Christian life, no matter where one is in one’s journey with God and regardless of one’s state of life in the Church:

Pope Francis: A ‘my-way-or-the-highway’ faith is heretical

June 9, 2016

VATICAN CITY – Pope Francis has called on Catholics to adopt a “healthy realism” in their approach to their faith, and he decried rigid idealists as heretics.