The Church is not a democracy. Our beliefs and our leaders, for instance, are not determined by popular vote. Yet there are many Catholics who seem to be as apathetic about their Church as millions of Americans are about politics. To such Catholics, the word “church” means either a building or the clergy.
One of my main ministries at my parish is serving Communion. This ministry includes serving Communion at Mass, but it also extends to people in our parish community who are unable to join us because of age, infirmity or other obstacles. In these cases, I bring Communion to them.
Last month’s Eucharistic procession along Summit Avenue in St. Paul was one of the most beautiful communal Catholic devotions I’ve ever participated in.
“At once the Spirit drove (Jesus) out into the desert, and he remained in the desert for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him” (Mk 1:12-13, NAB Revised Edition).
Armed with art supplies, Sister Alicia Torres recently invited young adults attending a Catholic conference near Milwaukee to create a self-portrait on paper, drawn inside a circle. The circle, she explained, represented the Eucharist. Through the Eucharist, each person better understands himself or herself as made in the image and likeness of God, she told them.
The gates of hell will never prevail against the Church — and yet the body of Christ can often seem to be on the brink of some kind of calamity or disaster. This can be experienced at the level of a local parish, diocese, or even at the level of the universal Church.
While formal dialogue about the theological and historical causes of the splits in Christianity are essential, so, too, is a recognition that "sinful actions and attitudes" have contributed and continue to contribute to divisions in the body of Christ, Pope Francis said.
Q) I am hoping to be cremated when I die. I would also like my family to bring my ashes up to the Boundary Waters and scatter them there, since it is where I feel closest to God. Is that OK?
Despite the chill and gusts of wind in St. Peter's Square, Pope Francis welcomed the beginning of spring with an impromptu lesson about gardening and how to grow into being better Christians.
