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Unintended Consequences: How the “relevant” church and segregating youth is killing Christianity. I recently spent six-months doing a rotation as a hospital chaplain. One day I received a page (Yes, hospitals actually still use pagers). Chaplains are generally called to the rooms of people who look ill: People gray with kidney disease, or yellow with liver failure, discouraged amputees, nervous cancer patients. In this room, however, was a strikingly attractive 23 year-old young lady sitting up cheerfully in the hospital bed, holding her infant daughter and chatting with family and friends. Confused, I stepped outside and asked her nurse, “Why...

<p>They were unlikely leaders. As the Bible tells it, most knew more about mending nets than winning converts when Jesus said he would make them "fishers of men." Yet 2,000 years later, all over the world, the Apostles are still drawing people in.</p>

An amateur archaeologist and film maker claims to have identified what could be the remains of some of Christ's 12 disciples in a first century burial chamber buried beneath a block of flats in Jerusalem. A team led by Simcha Jacobovic, a Canadian documentary director, used a robot to photograph a number of limestone burial caskets, found below a block of flats, which may provide an unprecedented glimpse into Christianity's earliest days. But the potential significance of the discovery is almost certain to be overshadowed by controversy, with Mr Jacobovic using it as new evidence to bolster his widely disputed...

Featured Term (selected at random):SILVANUS See: SILAS All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

“Love for Disciples” (John 13:1-17, 31b-35)“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Yes, he did. Maundy Thursday is all about Jesus’ love for his disciples. “Love for Disciples” to receive, “Love for Disciples” to learn. Love for disciples to receive--in the footwashing. Let’s set the scene. It’s the evening of the Passover. Time for the Passover meal. This is the meal all Jews ate every year on that date, to commemorate the night the Lord brought Israel out of bondage in Egypt. It was a special occasion, solemn and sacred. Jesus had...

For several weeks now, I have been slowly realizing again the call of Christ when it comes to pursuing things of eternal significance. The election had consumed me to the point of where I became a ranting idiot and hated the Democrats. The Spirit has convicted me, showing that hatred isn't the way, for no man should be hated. Yes, I still find myself in "battle mode" quite often; those ranting moments still occur. But, thanks to God's faithfulness and calling, I am not the same man that I was just a few months back. He has made me realize...

May 30, 2004 Pentecost Sunday Mass During the Day Psalm: Sunday 25 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Reading II Gospel Reading IActs 2:1-11 When the time for Pentecost was fulfilled, they were all in one place together. And suddenly there came from the sky a noise like a strong driving wind, and it filled the entire house in which they were. Then there appeared to them tongues as of fire, which parted and came to rest on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit...

Through the Holy Spirit we are restored to paradise, led back to the Kingdom of heaven, and adopted as children, given confidence to call God "Father" and to share in Christ's grace, called children of light and given a share in eternal glory."- St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto

God Glorified in the Nobodies by: John MacArthur Stained-Glass Saints? If you've ever visited the great cathedrals in Europe, you'd think the apostles were larger-than-life stained-glass saints with shining halos who represented an exalted degree of spirituality. But actually, they were very, very common men. It's a shame they have so often been put on pedestals as magnificent marble figures, or portrayed in paintings like some kind of Roman gods. That dehumanizes them. They were just twelve completely ordinary men—human in every way—and we shouldn't lose touch with who they really were. So what qualified those men to be apostles?...