Since I am still on vacation, I queued this post for my loyal readers! Here is a summary of 3 more posts you may have missed. Put on your reading glasses, pour yourself an iced tea and enjoy these pieces from the archive…

Catholics enjoy sex! It strengthens the loving bonds of husband and wife and may bear the happy fruit of offspring. There are many “recreational” abuses of sex that are sinful and harmful to the participants. They are disordered and often unnatural. Sometimes the harm is obvious and soon apparent, other times more subtle, accumulating over time. Some examples include premarital sex, contraception, pornography, masturbation, adultery, homosexual acts, promiscuity, immodesty and abortion.

Civil authority plays no role in the Church’s recognition of a valid marriage. In this regard, there is no civil authority. Valid marriages are valid and invalid marriages are invalid regardless of secular decrees. For this reason civil divorce simply can not dissolve a valid marriage and is not recognized by the Catholic Church.

We are opposed to abortion simply because it is murder. Abortion is intrinsically evil. Your mother’s pregnancy was not a medical condition. It was a period in her life during which her body provided you with shelter and nourishment. Back when you were completely defenseless, she did not “choose” to “terminate” you by poisoning you, crushing your head, or ripping you from her body to let you die abandoned.

Since I am on a brief vacation, I queued this post for my loyal readers! Here is a summary of 3 posts you may have missed. Put on your reading glasses, pour yourself an iced tea and enjoy these pieces from the archive…

Deep in our hearts, we are uneasy. We do not know the time or place of our death. We do not like to think about it. Maybe it will be far in the future. Maybe it is tomorrow. One thing is for sure – after every hour of every day, we are one hour closer to it. A lot of hours have passed already. The only thing unknown to us is the exact time remaining on our clock.

Many Catholic churches offer Eucharistic Adoration where the Eucharist is exposed in a monstrance – a special cross that holds and displays the Eucharist at its center. Many of those parishes have small chapels for this purpose, as does mine. Parishioners go there for quiet prayer, reflection or inspirational reading in Jesus’ direct presence.

I bet I know what you are thinking. You don’t need any Saint to pray for you because you have a personal relationship with Jesus. Why “go through” anyone else when you can go direct? Do you ever ask someone to pray for you? Do you ever pray for someone else? Do you believe in the power of prayer? This is no different! It is really that simple.