This column in our Catholic newspaper gives Bishop Sklba and me a great chance to promote those aspects of our faith that are signs of hope and consolation for all of our readers and for so many who share the values we treasure. In this Year for Priests, Pope Benedict XVI has opened up a number of ways for us to encounter the church and especially to encounter the church through the ministry and lives of priests.
The church’s teaching concerning the communion of saints is a great consolation for us as Catholics. St. Paul himself instructs us right from the dawn of the church’s activity: “You are God’s chosen race, his saints: he loves you, and you should be clothed in sincere compassion, in kindness and humility, gentleness and patience.” (Col. 3:12ff) The call to sanctity is truly the universal call to holiness in Jesus Christ. This, of course, happens definitively and authentically in the Catholic Church by our union with Christ in the love of the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit through the sacraments. Every Sunday we proclaim our belief in the communion of saints when we profess our faith (Nicene Creed) at the Mass.
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We live in complicated times. So many issues affect our daily lives about which we know little or nothing. We rely more and more on “experts” in their fields to inform us and shape our opinions and thoughts about some of the most vital and significant matters that touch us deeply.
The morning this publication was to go to the printer, local Catholics awoke to the news that their beloved Archbishop [...]
Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us as we begin this holy season of Lent: “The central mystery of our vocation is the same as that to which Lent is leading, namely, the death and Resurrection of the Lord.”
The pope reminds us that Lent forms, as it were, a great spiritual exercise to prepare for the celebration of the great Paschal Mystery and to deepen our awareness of it. A retreat is our way of going into training to become a better Christian. In the same way that walking and running are a means of exercising the body, a retreat is a spiritual exercise that prepares the soul to make an ever better response to what we have received.
Most of the time, at least I hope, I try to write you about matters I know a little something about, like prayer, the sacraments, or pastoral issues in the archdiocese, for instance.
Today I’m writing you on a topic I’m not too good at, or that knowledgeable about at all … fasting!
Not that I am unaware of the necessity of fasting, penance, and mortification in my spiritual life. One can hardly read a page in the Gospel, or study the life of any saint, without knowing that self-denial when it comes to food is an essential of genuine Christian discipleship.