Many thanks to everyone who reached out to me from places far and wide this past week, after EWTN rebroadcasted Marcus Grodi’s interview with me on the Journey Home program. I’m very humbled and thankful that my story has been helpful to so many of you who are on your own journeys of Catholic discovery. Every now […]

We all have loved ones who have left the Catholic Church. They are our children. Our grandchildren. Siblings and other relatives. Friends, neighbours and coworkers. Our hearts break for them as they brave the wilderness of life, outside the hearth and home of the Catholic Church. How do we bring them home? And why did […]

Today’s Gospel on this Solemnity of the Annunciation is the famous account of Mary’s encounter with Gabriel from Luke 1:26-38. It includes some indirect proof for two major Marian dogmas of the Church – the Immaculate Conception (which was recently celebrated on Dec. 8), and the perpetual virginity of Our Lady. It also gives us […]

Q. March 19 is always the Solemnity of St Joseph, so why is it being celebrated today, March 20? A. Because March 19 fell on a Sunday this year, this feast day was superseded by the Third Sunday of Lent. The Solemnity of Saint Joseph was thus moved to the following day this year. Q. When did this […]

Cardinal Thomas Collins, Archbishop of Toronto, penned a powerful letter today to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau regarding the Trudeau government’s regrettable recent decision to donate $650 million to international organizations that promote abortion and contraception. The full text of the Cardinal’s letter is below: The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau Prime Minister of Canada House […]

  Q. The season of Lent begins today, Ash Wednesday. Is Ash Wednesday a holy day of obligation? In other words, am I required as a Catholic to attend Mass on Ash Wednesday? A. No. Ash Wednesday is not a holy day of obligation. In Canada, the holy days of obligation are as follows: every Sunday (which […]

This is an absolute bombshell. My professor, Dr. Craig Evans, emailed me and some of his other students earlier this week, alerting us about an amazing discovery made in Israel, something he was sworn to secrecy about until the official announcement could be made today. It’s the kind of announcement that biblical scholars and, indeed, […]

As we get ready for The Big Game today, here’s a fantastic story about former New England Patriot Jerod Cherry, who won three Super Bowls with the team. Cherry donated his most prized Super Bowl ring, from the 2001 team (the Patriots’ first championship) to help pay for an orphanage that rescues children from drugs […]

In this Sunday’s second reading, once again we hear from St Paul’s 1st Letter to the Corinthians (1:26-31). This section builds on Paul’s teaching about the wisdom of the cross. Here’s what he wrote just prior to the verses selected for today’s reading: Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the […]

Once again, this Sunday’s second reading is from 1 Corinthians, and once again it’s from chapter 1 (vv. 10-13, 17). There were real divisions in the congregation that were very worrying to St Paul. Peter Kreeft once noted that Paul was horrified by the beginnings of a sort of “Protestantism” in Corinth. It isn’t a […]

Todd Aglialoro, writing for Catholic Answers: With their shocking publication of new norms for permitting divorced and remarried Catholics to return to the reception of Holy Communion (based on their reading of Amoris Laetitia – ed.), the bishops of Malta have shown how great errors can grow from tiny seeds. And: Remember, divorced and remarried Catholics […]

Over the next few weeks, the second reading at Sunday Mass will be taken from Saint Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians). This week, we read the first few verses of chapter one: Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the […]

Ever wonder why some Eastern Christians celebrate Christmas on January 6, the date the Western Church chose for the Epiphany? And how did the West settle on December 25 as the date for Christmas? Andrew McGowan, Dean of Yale Divinity School, sheds much light on these questions: “Around 200 CE, Tertullian of Carthage reported the […]

Bishop Robert Barron, Auxiliary Bishop of Los Angeles and founder of Word on Fire ministries, has offered up yet another great movie review. This one’s on director Martin Scorsese’s Silence, long in the making, which adapts Shusaku Endo’s 1966 novel of the same name. It deals with (spolier alert) the apostasy of certain Jesuit missionaries in […]

Matthew and Luke are the only two Gospel writers who include an infancy narrative in their biographies of Jesus. According to the most widely accepted theory about how the Gospels were composed, Matthew and Luke wrote independently of one another. That is, Matthew did not have a copy of Luke’s Gospel on his desk when […]

During the Christmas and Easter seasons in particular, many skeptics appear in the media who insist that these celebrations are meaningless, because Jesus never actually existed. How can we respond? It’s important to understand that people who doubt the birth and existence of Jesus of Nazareth are extremely few. Their claims are, quite frankly, not […]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says this: “(W)hen the Church celebrates the liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Saviour’s first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating (John the Baptist’s) birth […]

Matthew Leonard, Executive Director of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology: In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the native people of Mexico City suffered conquest first by the Aztecs and then by the Spanish conquistadores. It was the custom of the Aztecs to harvest the conquered people as victims for human sacrifice, offered to […]

In this Sunday’s Gospel reading (Matt 11:2-11), John the Baptist, who by this time has been imprisoned by Herod, sends messengers to ask Jesus if he is the promised Messiah. Have you ever wondered why John did that? Have you ever wondered why Jesus doesn’t simply answer, “Yes”? Read on! Indeed, Jesus’ reply to the […]

On this Second Sunday of Advent, we encounter the figure of John the Baptist in the Gospel reading (Matthew 3:1-12): John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!” It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said: A […]