Quesion:  How did Mary know that Jesus was God and could perform a miracle at Cana?

During the Annunciation, the angel tells Mary that her son will be the “Son of the Most High” (Luke 1:32).   From the beginning, then, Mary knew that her son was destined for greatness.  At the wedding at Cana, she brings a problem to him and is confident that he’ll be able to resolve it (John 2: 1-12).
As a mom, I can relate.  Being a mom means having faith that your children will be able to do things they’ve never done before, whether it’s walk, read, or ride a bike.  You’ve never seen them do these things, but you know that they will when the time is right.  Often, too, a mom’s encouragement is key to their success.
At…

Question:  Are all of St. Paul’s letters really written by him?  Someone told me that some may have been speeches or other people’s materials?
Today, if someone writes a piece of literature and attributes it to
someone else, that’s considered a fraud. In biblical, times, however, it
was both common and acceptable to write something that you believed
captured the essence of someone else’s thinking and then attribute its
authorship to that very person, even if he or she was no longer alive.
We know through Scripture scholarship, that many of the books of the
Bible, including the Gospels, were not written per se by the person
whose name appears in the title but rather, were written…

Christianity emerged from Judaism, which itself rejected figurative religious art as being too much like idol worship (see Ex 20:3).  But once Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire under Constantine in the 4th century CE, it was not long before Roman practices of portraying and honoring the divine (their gods and emperors) would make their way into Christian practices as well.

Although the saints are portrayed in statues, icons, paintings, and other media, they are not worshipped as God is.  Rather, we venerate the saints, meaning that we honor them, give them respect, and show them devotion for what they have accomplished in their lives of faith.  John Coleman, SJ sees saints as…

My question:
My Spiritual Director says that if I am in touch with Jesus and keep a regular and good relationship with Him (through personal prayer, Word of God, mass etc), I can receive all I need from Him i.e. all my needs can be satisfied from Him. However, I personally feel that there are some things that I cannot receive from Him. For example, sometimes when I pray, I dont get the comfort that I would have got if I had spent that time with a friend. Many times I feel the need for a hug or a touch. If I pray at that time, it doesn’t satisfy as much as getting a real hug. Is this because the ‘quality’ of my prayer hasn’t reached that level OR is it because some needs just have to be fulfilled from other humans…

Question:  What is wrong with watching pornography?  I’m not really hurting anybody, isn’t it better than having sex with someone else?
The porn industry does hurt many people, specifically the men, women and children chewed up and spit out by an unscrupulous, to say the least, worldwide sex industry.  The multi-billion dollar porn industry hurts not only those enslaved and addicted by and to porn; it degrades all involved by diminishing what sex can and ought to be as a life giving gift of our loving creator God.  Instead of experiencing sexual relations as the person to person mutual giving human sexuality calls for, porn reduces sex to a selfish, self serving activity that objectifies the…

In June of 1981, six children and teenagers in the town of Medjugorje, Yugoslavia (now Bosnia-Herzegovina) reported having visions of the Virgin Mary.   Over the years, they have allegedly received thousands of messages  from Mary; some of the original visionaries still report daily apparitions.  Medjugorje has grown into a large center of pilgrimage, attracting some 30 million visitors.
Church authorities have, for the most part, been cautious in their response to Medjugorje.   In 1991, the Bishops’ Conference of the former Yugoslavia declared, “On the basis of the investigations so far it can not be affirmed that one is dealing with supernatural apparitions and revelations.”  In June…

What are the Dead Sea Scrolls and what do they mean for Catholics
and biblical scholarship?
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered by a shepherd boy in 1947 in caves
surrounding the northwest shore of the Dead Sea. These ancient scrolls
turned out to be texts, written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, that
dated from the 1st and 2nd centuries before Christ. Among these writings
are some of the oldest known copies of Biblical (Old Testament) texts,
including fragments from every book of the Old Testament. It is believed
that these texts were part of a library kept by a Jewish sect known as
the Essenes. In addition to biblical texts (about 40%), the Dead Sea
Scrolls also include copies of extra-biblical literature, writings…

Question:  I am an African-American, and I was wondering whether it matters what race you are in order to be Catholic. Do you have to be a certain race in order to convert to Catholicism?

Absolutely anyone may become a Catholic convert!  I am sure you have heard of the apostle Paul’s take on this (Galatians 3:28), so it is worth remembering that such differences don’t matter when entering the Christian life.

What I suspect you are asking is whether you will be welcome in your local church, and what the experience of African-American Catholics overall has been over time. True, the Catholic Church, especially in North America, has been very much shaped by the legacies of different European immigrant groups…

Question: Should we use every means medically possible to keep an ill person alive? What is the Catholic teaching on this question?
I reviewed some of the general principles that Catholics apply to the question of using medical technology to sustain or prolong a person’s life. Such questions are in the realm of the discipline of bioethics, which explores the ethical questions that arise in the presence of such dramatic advances in medical technology as we have seen in recent years. Bioethics is a relatively recent field, mostly developed since the 1960s, and represents the best attempts of ethicists to respond to rapidly changing situations in the light of the fundamental values of life, freedom, and…

How can I prove to my atheist professor that God exists?
Kill’em (Just Kidding!).  Short of your professor being convinced by the arguments of brilliant minds like St. Thomas Aquinas or Bernard Lonergan, S.J., there is little we can do.  (Personally I love the argument from contingent being [that which can not exist].  Such being must be kept in existence by a necessary being [that which cannot not exist]).  Still, there is really no sure way to logically or philosophically prove God exists.  All the arguments founder on the meaning of words, and the acceptance of certain presuppositions.  I think the question, “Why is there anything rather than nothing?” is a great question.  Some philosophers…

Why did Jesus disobey his mother and leave her only to be found in the temple?  I thought Jesus didn’t sin and disobedience to one’s parents seems sinful to me!

When discussing Bible stories, it’s always good to carefully re-read the text in question.  Fact is, the story doesn’t say for sure that Jesus was being disobedient.  Luke 2: 43-45 says that “the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it.  Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey.  Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends.  When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.”  It’s very likely that the entire situation was a misunderstanding…

Question:  If God made a covenant with Noah about the flood then why do we have floods and tsunamis, etc today?
It’s important to remember that the story of Noah and the flood is a
story of deliverance, not a story that explains weather conditions. In
this story, God intends to purge the earth of sinfulness and deliver a
just man and his family from the torrents of evil. Water, in this story
and in much of the Old Testament, is symbolic of the chaos that existed
at the dawn of creation before God separated the waters from the dry
land. It is from this chaos that God will deliver the just man and renew
the earth. This is a story of God’s promise to deliver us from the evil
of sin…a promise which he has kept…

Editor’s Note:  For an answer this week, BustedHalo® turns to America Magazine and Fr. James Martin for his take on Anglicans and Catholics:…

Question:  If there is a God then why is there suffering in the world?

I often preach that there are only two things of which I am absolutely sure: one, God loves us and, two, humans suffer.  No one has ever disagreed with the second assertion.

This question of evil, known in theological circles as the theodicy question (impress your theology major friends throwing around that term over coffee), is the main question to give believers pause.

The first thing to recognize is that suffering is only a problem for those who believe in God.  If there is no God, there is no reason to think we should not suffer as we do.  It is only when we hope in a God of love and life, a good God who created all, that pain and death become contradictions.…

Question: Some of my Pentecostal friends believe that speaking in tongues is a sign that you are “saved.” Does the Catholic Church have an official stance on speaking in tongues?
I don’t believe that the Catholic Church has an official stance on speaking in tongues. In recent years its approach to this phenomenon seems to have been one of cautious acceptance, with an emphasis on the “cautious.”
Speaking in tongues (also known as “glossolalia,” from the Greek word “glossa” meaning tongue or language) has been part of Catholic experience at two periods of our history.
The first was in the very early Church, as recorded in the New Testament. There are…

Why can’t people live together before marriage?
Erma Bombeck once said “Living together is to marriage as babysitting is to being a parent.”  If living together before marriage was such a sure fire way to ensure a marriage’s success, divorce rates for those who cohabitate would be lower than those who don’t.  Actually the opposite is the case.  The Catholic Bishops website that helps young couples preparing for marriage www.foryourmarriage.org reports that marriages that come after cohabitation are 46% more likely to end in divorce.  Children are particularly vulnerable to the painful experiences that result from the dissolution of adults’ relationships.  “Forty percent…

Does the nursery rhyme “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” refer to the Virgin Mary?

In his book Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme, Chris Roberts offers three possible interpretations for this English rhyme.

The first interpretation is the one you mention: Mary is the Virgin Mary, the “pretty maids all in a row” are nuns, and the “cockle shells” are a reference to the famous badges worn by pilgrims on the Santiago de Compostela.   (How the “quite contrary” fits into the equation is not clear.)

It seems more likely, however, that the rhyme refers to one of two royal Marys:  either Mary Tudor or Mary, Queen of Scots.  Both were Catholic monarchs who reigned over Protestant…

Since you’ve only known this girl a few months I would be very cautious about jumping into marriage too quickly. It’s the number one reason that annulments and divorces happen. Let’s put that out there first of all.
I think you need to explore the reasons as to why you have cold feet. It also sounds to me like perhaps people are pressuring you to get married –which is never a good reason to get married. I might suggest talking with a counselor or a priest that you trust about this.
Marriage is a sacramental partnership and it is never a 50-50 partnership. Rather it is a 100%-100% partnership where each person totally gives themselves to one another and grows in love. You needn’t be the “Head…

Certainly God knows when we are sorry for our sins. And since God’s only relationship with us is one of unconditional love, whenever we turn to God with a sincere sorrow for sin and a desire to make a new beginning, God is there to meet us with forgiveness.
As human beings, however, we may need a more concrete way of experiencing God’s love for us. A person who loves us might show his or her love by making time for us, writing us a note, treating us to a special meal, or buying us a gift. We may already know that our friend cares for us, but the concrete attention is a confirmation and reassurance that human love requires. We Catholics believe that God has given us the sacraments as a way of showing that we are receiving…

Is getting drunk a mortal sin?

I stopped drinking Jan. 1, 1979.  My personal history in college and some family dynamics made me wonder about my drinking.  Quitting drinking is one of the healthiest and sanest things I’ve ever done.  So I know what it is to drink, and I know what it is to live without alcohol.

If you are asking the question, be concerned.  Most people do not drink to get drunk.  Most people do not often, or normally, get “wasted.”  Getting drunk once in a great while, or at some great fun occasion… most likely is not a deadly sin (But one drunk driving incident can kill you or someone else.  Think Ted Kennedy!).

Habitual drunkenness is not congruent with our commitment to be followers of…