(Photo: Thays Orrico / Unsplash) “Wait,  what ?!” I exclaimed, interrupting my youth minister midsentence, “I don’t get it.  Jesus  is in...

By Susan W. Murray Special to the Denver Catholic In the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, 430 parishioners from St. Thomas More Church in Centennial joined either a virtual or an in-person “family bubble” group to participate in the Augustine Institute’s program The Search. Featuring well-known Catholic evangelist Chris Stefanick, The Search’s seven beautifully filmed episodes pose life’s critical questions:  “What do you seek?” “Who are you?” “Why a God?” “What’s o

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash By Elizabeth Scalia Editor-at-Large for Word On Fire A recent conversation with a friend I know to be a faithful Catholic left me feeling disturbed. This fellow participates at Mass regularly, volunteers to help out both in his parish and within his community, and receives Holy Communion with reverence and hope. Unlike 70% of Catholics, he understands the teaching about transubstantiation and believes that the Eucharistic Host is the Body a

An icon of Blessed Maria Lorenza Longo is unveiled during her beatification in the Naples cathedral on Oct. 9. By Father Blaine Burkey, O.F.M.Cap. Archivist, St. Francis of Assisi Friary The Capuchin Poor Clare nuns of North Denver’s Our Lady of Light of Light Monastery and their benefactors and other friends are excited about the beatification of their 16th-century foundress, Mother Maria Lorenza Longo, in the Cathedral of Naples, Italy, on Oct. 9. Capuchin nuns and friars w

She was an Italian immigrant, a loving servant of those in need and the very first American saint, who also happened to walk the streets...

“It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick. For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” “I assure you, tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you!” -Jesus “The great saints have gained Heaven by their works; myself, I wish to imitate the thieves, I wish to take it by a trick…” “I ought to be distressed at sleeping [for seven years] during my prayers and acts of thanksgiving. Well, I am not distress

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash By Anthony Gallegos Anthony is a Catechetical School Instructor and the Enrollment Coordinator for Catechetical School at the SJV Lay Division. Last week I ended the blog with the assertion that  if we do not know our history, if we have lost our memory so to speak, then we will inevitably place God in the role of slave master or tyrant . The reason for this, I assert, is that God wishes to recapitulate the story of salvation history

Christ on the Road to Emmaus, Jan Wildens, 1640s We often think of sermons today as the preaching of the doctrine, law, and living of the...

By Anthony Gallegos Anthony is a Catechetical School Instructor and the Enrollment Coordinator for Catechetical School at the SJV Lay Division. Last week I accused the world of having lost its memory.  This week I want to look at how the Spirit of the Lord, the Holy Spirit, preserves our memory and thereby gives us reason to hope for our future ( Catechism of the Catholic Church  paragraphs  2625 ,  2685 ,  2848 , and others). The mission of the Holy Spirit, in part, is to he

Madonna and Child with the Young St. John the Baptist, Sandro Botticelli, circa 1468 Ugliness is a spiritual problem. If beauty manifests the perfection and splendor of something, ugliness distorts it, corrupting what it is meant to be and blinding us to its true reality. A tree struck by lightning or blighted with disease is ugly. A building sculpted with cement, with little light or elegance, depresses us. The ugliness of most modern art disturbs us and does not uplift our

File photo by James Baca By Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, MC was the postulator of the Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta and serves as director of the Mother Teresa Center in Rome. The Mother Teresa Center was founded in 2004 by the Missionaries of Charity religious family after her beatification. Its primary aim is to preserve the legacy of Mother Teresa by collecting and disseminating her written and spoken words

One of the famous episodes in the Old Testament is the wandering of Israel in the wilderness. The descendants of Abraham, whom God...

“I am with you always” (Mt 28:20). Quoting Jesus at the Ascension from the Gospel of Matthew, Pope Francis shared these words when he...

(Photo: Adobe Stock) For my last day of elementary school, my entire class went to Chuck E. Cheese for a pizza party. I remember saving...

Who is God? And how does his identity impact my life? These are big questions that most of us don’t think about often, if at all. But the...

Part of the tradition of the Catholic Church is meditation on “Fear of the Lord” as a gift of the Holy Spirit, based Isaiah 11:1-3 and Jesus’ fulfillment of its prophecy. Since fear has damaged so many of our human relationships, this part of our tradition can strike people as odd. How can it make sense to cultivate any kind of “fear” in our relationship with the Lord? It might be helpful to reflect on our own natural development to understand what the Church means by the s

family, childhood and fatherhood concept - happy father and little son playing and having fun outdoors over autumn park background...

VIENNA - JULY 27: Holy Trinity. Detail from fresco of scene from apocalypse from 19. cent. in main apse of Altlerchenfelder church on July 27, 2013 Vienna. By Elizabeth Klein Assistant Professor of Theology at the Augustine Institute If you are a lifelong Catholic or if you have taken theology classes at some point in your life, you are probably familiar with what the Church teaches about God: that God is Trinity, one God in three persons. You have likely made the Sign of the

In the Old Testament, God’s people of Israel knew of God as father, but only in a general sense. For instance, since God is creator of...

An image of a burning thorn bush christian symbol Even when Thomas Aquinas was young, he was known often to ask, “who is God?” As he grew into one of the Church’s greatest theologians, he realized that it was much easier to explain who God is not. This might be a good place to begin today as well. God is not just a more powerful being within the universe. He is not like Zeus, a human-like being with superpowers, bossing and bullying other creatures around. He is not an old ma