Traditionally, “parishes” are based on geography and there were very few differences from one parish to another in ritual experiences.  Technically, Catholics are supposed to choose their parish based on these geographical distinctions, but practically speaking almost nobody does this any more.  People choose to worship where they are spiritually fed most often.
Parishes also seem to follow the same kind of expectations.  While the celebration of the Eucharist is the same in all parishes, other things are not.  Some parishes have a great commitment to social justice.  Others have a large commitment to education or to pro-life activities or the poor.  In fact The United States…

Some definitions to start:
“The Vatican” is the 108 acre plot of land in Rome, West of the Tiber River.
“The Papacy” is the office traced back to St. Peter who traditionally is considered to have been buried at “The Vatican,” so could we say he was the first Pope to “live” there?
The Lateran Treaty of 1929 created Vatican City as a political city state. Constantine gave Pope Militades the land in 313 AD. In 326, the Constantinian Basilica was built on what is thought by many to be the tomb of St. Peter. Pope Symmachus (498-514 A.D.) constructed a palace on Vatican land. Popes have lived at the Vatican since the return from Avignon in 1377.
Ask why the area is…

Mary, Seat of Wisdom (also known as Our Lady of the Chair or the Latin name Sedes Sapientiae), is a very old title for Mary.  As with all of Mary’s titles, it highlights one specific aspect of her life and experience – specifically, her role as the one who gave birth to Christ.
Artistic representations of Mary, Seat of Wisdom often show her seated on a throne, holding the Christ child on her lap and offering him for adoration.  Many early Christians saw Christ as Wisdom incarnate; therefore, by holding him on her lap, Mary becomes the “seat” of wisdom.  On another, deeper level, the title also refers to the fact that Mary “held” wisdom inside her by carrying Christ in her womb.…

Specifically, in Matthew 16:28, Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” It is difficult to determine precisely what Jesus is referring to in this passage and many have interpreted it to mean the Second Coming which is to occur at the Parousia – at the end of time. The problem with that interpretation, however, is that the Parousia did not occur in that generation and has not yet occurred! To understand what Jesus is talking about, we need to pay attention to the fact that he is speaking here only to his disciples and not to a large audience. He is indicating that some of them will see him in all of his glory as he will be revealed…

The commandment “Thou shalt not kill” comes into play here.  While it wouldn’t bring about an imminent death if one were not to hit the gym, long term, it may indeed have consequences.
We are required to “take care of the temple.”  St. Paul writes that we should “glorify God with our bodies.”
A second note:  The Greeks believed in dualism, meaning that the body was bad and corrupt and that the spirit was all that mattered.  That gave rise to many not caring about their health, mostly also because they expected the world to end relatively soon.
But “we do not know the day nor the hour.”  God wants us to be the best version of ourselves.  So while…

Any Introduction to Sociology Textbook would have the numbers on world
religions, and www.adherents.com provides wonderful info on world
religions.  Their 2005 snapshot shows that 33% of the worlds
inhabitants, some 2.2 billion people, consider themselves Christian
(some 1.2 billion of those Christians are Catholic).  About 21% are
follower of Islam (1.5 billion).  Hindus make up 14%.  The really new
category this past century are the growing numbers who consider
themselves “non-religious,” some 16% of the planet.
For Catholics in the USA, the numbers are challenging.  ”The Catholic
Church has lost more adherents than any other group: about one-third of
respondents…

Question: Isn’t Yeshua the correct spelling for Jesus’ name? I heard the name Jesus came about from a bad translation.

Jesus’ name means, “God saves.” But let’s go back a little and explore Jesus’ name. In Hebrew, the name Yeshua was fairly common. It is a variation of the name Joshua, a name that we encounter in the Old Testament. It is likely, although not proven, that Yeshua was the Hebrew form of Jesus’ name. From Hebrew, this name was then transliterated into Koine (common) Greek as Iesous. Since Greek has no “sh” sound, that was “lost” in translation. From Greek, the Lord’s name was translated into Latin as Iesus. The English name, Jesus, of course, comes from this Latin version.…

The Catholic view of cremation has changed in recent years. Cremation was the common practice of the Roman empire at the time of Jesus. In contrast, the Jewish community followed the practice of burying the bodies of those who had died. In the tradition of his time, Jesus, after his death on the cross, was buried in a tomb, probably a cave. The early Christians appear to have followed the Jewish practice. They buried their dead in cemeteries, or the underground caves we now call catacombs. A special regard was attached to the bodies of martyrs who had died violent deaths rather than deny their faith. Their tombs became places of prayer.
The practice of cremation disappeared after Roman times, re-appearing only as…

Ash Wednesday is the start of Lent, when Catholics (and some Protestant denominations) take time to remind themselves that life indeed is limited: that we will die.
The Ash Wednesday ritual is simple.  Catholics place ashes on their foreheads as a visible reminder to others that they acknowledge that their bodies will turn to ash one day, that life is indeed precarious, but that they are also a resurrection people.
Catholics believe that more lies beyond this end, and so the ashes are marked by the sign of faith — the cross — at once a symbol of God’s destruction and His greatest triumph.
We listen to the words that the priest or minister says to us as he places the ashes on our forehead: “Remember that you are…

Literally translated as “Fat Tuesday,” Mardi Gras is a celebration that takes place the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. The idea is that people pig out on the foods that they are going to restrict themselves from during the Lenten fast. In some ways it’s akin to storing up for the long haul, like a bear that goes into hibernation. In this case however, it’s a mostly cultural phenomenon that gives people an excuse to party and to participate in debauchery.
Other countries often have similar celebrations called “Carnivale” which is translated “without meat” and thus provides people the opportunity once again to eat much before depriving themselves of…

What we know about Mary’s parents comes mainly from apocryphal texts — texts that are written in the style of sacred scripture but are not considered to be divinely inspired.  The Protoevangelium of James, a text written around 150 AD, identifies Mary’s parents as Joachim and Anne.  They were apparently a wealthy couple who suffered infertility for many years.  According to the text, Joachim fasted for forty days and nights in hopes of having a child.  Their faith and perseverance was rewarded with the birth of Mary, whose coming was announced by an angel.  In gratitude, Joachim and Anne are said to have consecrated Mary to the Lord and, at the age of three, she was sent to live in the temple.

How much…

Do we have ideas on who really wrote the Gospels?  I know they are only attributed to people who “followed” Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—but what about the people who actually wrote down the words?
In short, the answer is NO, we do not really know who put pen to paper for each of the Gospels. We do know that each of the Gospels went through an oral phase, consisting of up to several decades, before they were recorded in writing. Each of the accounts is attributed to a specific person – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John – who was a contemporary of Jesus and/or the Apostles.
Matthew, also referred to as Levi, was one of the Apostles as was John. Mark (referred to as John Mark in the Acts of the Apostles) is…

Concupiscence is the term the church uses to describe our own human disordered inclination to sin.  These include disordered desires (desires that go against God’s plan for what’s best for us).  Even after we regain God’s grace in confession we still have this tendency to sin again.  None of us are perfect and we all fall under the weight of concupiscence but because God knows His creatures so well, he understands our nature and forgives us and gives us the chance to try again.
We all have things that tie us up and that keep us in their grip–all the things we are tempted by and that we desire in an unhealthy way can all be attributed to this weak tendency of ours which we term as our concupiscence.…

Question:  In a world of particularity, where people have so many choices that they don’t know what to choose sometimes, doesn’t interfaith and ecumenical dialogue just confuse us more?  How can we retain our particularity while still staying open to dialogue with other faiths?

If you’re not well grounded in your own faith, then yes, ecumenical and interfaith dialogue could have the effect of confusing you. But, as the saying goes, if you know where home is, you can go anywhere with benefit. If, however, you don’t know where home is, you’ll probably get lost or confused.
What many fail to understand about the situation of dialogue is that it presumes the people engaging in it have a clear…

Yes.  But keep in mind what the Bishops of the United States have said
about the participation of Catholics in political processes and measure
what a particular priest says against the collective wisdom of the
bishops.  Here’s a bit of what I offered in Nov. 2008 on my blog
(www.jesuitjottings.blogspot.com):
It is a mistake to think that the Catholic Church tells people how to
vote.  Catholic Bishops tell people they need to form their consciences
and vote accordingly.  The Bishops’ provocative and prophetic statement
“Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” (found on the Bishops’
website ( http://www.faithfulcitizenship.org/ ) clearly articulates…

Yes.  But keep in mind what the Bishops of the United States have said
about the participation of Catholics in political processes and measure
what a particular priest says against the collective wisdom of the
bishops.  Here’s a bit of what I offered in Nov. 2008 on my blog
(www.jesuitjottings.blogspot.com):
It is a mistake to think that the Catholic Church tells people how to
vote.  Catholic Bishops tell people they need to form their consciences
and vote accordingly.  The Bishops’ provocative and prophetic statement
“Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” (found on the Bishops’
website ( http://www.faithfulcitizenship.org/ ) clearly articulates…

The English major in me says that there are Marian themes in anything, if you look hard enough.  All joking aside, your question is a fascinating one. The first connection that came to my mind is the very name “Snow White,” with its connotations of innocence and purity. This has an obvious similarity to the Catholic beliefs that Mary was 1) conceived without sin and 2) a virgin her entire life.
I did some research and found a fascinating piece by Michael P. Duricy, called “Semiotics, Snow White, and Mary: A Mystical Rose By Any Other Name?” In it, he  addresses several simliarities between Mary and the Snow White of the Disney film (keep in mind that Disney based his story on the original nineteenth-century…

In some non-Catholic Christian churches, it is not unusual to hear the preacher talk about the Scripture passage that he or she has chosen to proclaim and to preach on. In the Catholic Church, as well as in a number of Protestant denominations with a liturgical tradition, the selection of Scripture readings is not left to the whim of the individual pastor. Rather, we follow a cycle of Scripture readings that was determined by the bishops, most recently after the Second Vatican Council, and set forth in a Lectionary. This cycle of readings is wedded to our liturgical calendar of feasts and seasons through which we enter more deeply into the experience of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
The Lectionary provides…

Question:  How can Mary be the Mother of God, if God is eternal?  Wouldn’t that mean she existed before God?
It’s a great question, and one that was addressed definitively at the Council of Ephesus in 431.  Before we go there, though, it’s good to clarify what Catholics (and in fact most Christians) believe about God and the Trinity.
Catholics believe in the Holy Trinity, meaning that we have one God in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  “The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire.” (CCC 253)   God the Son, otherwise known as Jesus Christ, is the person of the Trinity who was born to Mary and…

Many books of the Bible existed and were transmitted orally before they were eventually recorded in writing. This may seem strange to us today, however, in a society in which most people were illiterate, as in biblical times, the oral tradition was heavily relied upon.
One of the techniques that was used to help people remember long passages is evidenced in the first story of creation in Genesis, chapter one. The division of creation into seven days, each following a pattern of God speaking, God creating, and God blessing, made it easier for people to listen, retain, and retell the story. Eventually, each book of the Bible did come to be recorded in writing, however, without a printing press, which was invented in…