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Therefore, Lord, we pray: graciously accept this oblation of our service, that of your whole family; order our days in your peace, and command that we be delivered from eternal damnation and counted among the flock of those you have chosen

— The Roman Canon/Eucharistic Prayer I

Station days were days of fasting in the early Christian Church, associated with a procession to certain prescribed churches in Rome, where the Mass and Vespers would be celebrated to mark important days of the liturgical year. Although other cities also had similar practices, and the fasting is no longer prescribed, the Roman churches associated with the various station days are still the object of pilgrimage and ritual, especially in the season of Lent.

From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. “Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.” Already here on earth the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God.
—Catechism of the Catholic Church #336

453. How does one keep Sunday holy? Christians keep Sunday and other days of obligation holy by participating in the Eucharist of the Lord and by refraining from those activities which impede the worship of God and disturb the joy proper to the day of the Lord or the necessary relaxation of mind and body. Activities are allowed on the Sabbath which are bound up with family needs or with important social service, provided that they do not lead to habits prejudicial to the holiness of Sunday, to family life and to health. (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church)

The devil exists and acts in people and society…Some people are inclined towards a superficial optimism and think evil is merely an incidental imperfection in a world which is continually evolving towards better days. Nevertheless the history of mankind has been adversely affected by the devil’s influence. We find in our day all the features of an intense evil which cannot be explained in terms of human behavior alone.

In Exodus 20.2 God reveals his name to Moses: "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt". The word translated with “the Lord” is the famous Tetragrammaton (Greek for “four-letter”) that the Jews cannot even pronounce and Christians should reverence: “YHWH“, vocalized in various ways including “Yahweh“. The four Hebrew letters that compose it are these: “יהוה “, yod-he-waw-he. Remember that Hebrew is read from right to left.

Vatican news commentator, Sandro Magister, recently commented on Pope Benedict’s book , which came out after his death, called What Christianity Is and its comments on the sacrifice of the Mass. Here are some bullet points from Magister’s essay and then from an excerpt from Benedict’s book. You can read the whole commentary and essay here.

“The end of the family is threefold: to provide its members in body and mind with the necessities for an ordered life; to bring up the children; to be the cell of society. Upon these individual social existential ends rests the primacy of the family among all other social units, including the state…(T)he family is prior to the state and holds natural rights which the state is bound to recognize…”

For the Fathers* (of the Church), tradition** presents first the content of the Scriptures, which contain in one way or another all that is necessary to live as God wishes us to, and it interprets the meaning of the Scriptures. In fact, this meaning is not given clearly by Scripture itself and is found, in a certain way, outside it. To understand this fully, it would be necessary to develop the traditional conception of how the sacred texts should be read for a true perception and enjoyment of God’s Word. The divine Scriptures are regarded as a kind of sacrament: a grace-bearing sign that effectively realizes communion with God, and salvation, when it is used in the right conditions.

The devotion that characterizes the Tuesday preceding the Ashes (beginning of Lent) can help us to intensify our adoration and trust in the Lord Jesus. The devout practice was born from the invitation addressed by the Blessed Virgin Mary in May 1938 he appeared with a scapular in his hand to Sister Pierina De Micheli who was praying before the Blessed Sacrament in her convent in Milan.

The death of Terri Schiavo years ago raised a number of issues, moral, legal and constitutional, about the right to life and the so-called right to die. Most coverage of the case focused on the question of her guardian's right to decide according to her alleged wishes and the due process of the judicial proceedings. However, at base, the question was a moral, not a legal, one: under what conditions, if any, may a patient, a guardian, medical personnel or civil authorities, withhold or withdraw nutrition and hydration.

A French-Algerian actor recounts his conversion from Islam to Catholicism via Protestantism. Born in a difficult neighborhood, rescued from the theater by delinquency, in his show “Coming out” he bears witness to his spiritual journey and his journey towards true freedom. The one staged by Mehdi Djaadi, a French-Algerian actor in the theater, is decidedly out of the ordinary. No, it's not what you think. The one represented by Mehdi in his monologue entitled "Coming out" is not the story of an exit from some dark closet: it is the story of a conversion, of a gaze that gradually opens up to the true light, the one that illuminates every man.

Pope Benedict, before he was Pope, as Cardinal Ratzinger, expressed himself on the title of this essay in a book called The Ratzinger Report. He said: It seemed exaggerated to me. So it was difficult for me to understand the true meaning of another famous expression…the declaration that designated the Virgin Mary as the “conqueror of all heresies.” Now in this confused period where truly every type of heretical aberration seems to be pressing upon the doors of the authentic faith-now I understand that it was not a matter of pious exaggerations, but of truths that today are more valid than ever.

A young woman, Megan Besham, wrote in the December 2022 issue of the magazine, First Things: “Like many a wayward daughter of middle-class America, when I was in college I took up academic culture’s invitation to throw off the moral restraints of my Christian upbringing. I experimented with all manner of substances and licentiousness—even with feminist theory, which almost proved intellectually fatal. “This was the second of two essays about college and the Faith. The first essay was by a different young woman, Veronica Clarke, who chose her college because it was “unapologetically Catholic.

There was a news item about the University of Minnesota Medical School promoting (imposing) a “woke” political agenda on faculty and applicants.  You would think that the goal of a medical school is to form competent doctors in the healing arts.  It’s not just at this medical school.  Some of the nation’s best medical schools are weeding out applicants who are insufficiently devoted to DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) efforts. A review of the admissions process at 50 of the top-ranked medical schools found that 36 asked applicants their views on, or experience in, DEI efforts.  Many were overt in asking applicants if they agreed with certain statements about racial politics and the causes of disparate health outcomes.