Just hours prior to his inauguration Gov.-elect Chris Christie and his new administration was offered prayerful support at a special Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart Jan. 19.
Despite what Bambi might have you believe, hunters are not the enemy. Local hunters are utilizing their sport to give back to the less fortunate through Hunters Helping the Hungry, an organization that provides venison, or deer meat, to a local food bank to be distributed to low-income families in the area.
Last January, when a young Mexican forklift operator was denied his wages for three days of work through a temporary employment agency, he turned to New Labor for help. When the worker, along with 45 New Labor members showed up at the temp agency to demand the man’s pay, the agency’s manager called the police claiming her life had been threatened. When five police arrived cars on the scene, the men and women were singing a song.
Hailing it as a night of renewal and celebration for the Church, Bishop Paul G. Bootkoski formally accepted a proposal to merge the borough’s three national parishes into one at a prayer service Jan. 12.
After more than a year and a half of weekly training classes, 10 Hispanic couples’ dedication culminated in certification during the commissioning Mass for Marriage Ministry at Holy Trinity Church Jan. 17.
Auxiliary Bishop Martin D. Holley of Washington, D.C., encouraged worshipers to focus their lives on loving God, their neighbor and themselves at the 23rd annual Mass for Racial Harmony.
Parishioners from the Raritan Bay Deanery assembled at Our Lady of Victories Parish on the feast day of St. John Neumann to pray for priests, past and present, at an evening prayer service Jan. 5.
The Ministry of Mothers Sharing group at St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral Parish, Metuchen, is scheduled to host a women’s prayer breakfast and retreat from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Feb. 6.
Bishop Paul G. Bootkoski will serve as principal celebrant and homilist at the Mass for the intentions of readers of The Catholic Spirit, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Metuchen, Feb. 3.
It’s been a long hard winter. Unbelievable that the calendar says it’s only just past the middle of January. It seems like we’ve been in a deep freeze forever.
Most Catholics can point with pride to a woman religious who inspired them, whether high or low profile. Sister Helen Prejean, from my native Louisiana, inspired me to think about how the use of the death penalty degrades respect for human life.
A Mexican nun operating a medical center in Port-au-Prince said plenty of aid is arriving in the Haitian capital, but it is failing to reach many of those who were injured and left homeless by the Jan. 12 earthquake.
Catholic Americans are heroic and inspirational in their generosity, said Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, and he anticipated a huge response to the second collection taken for Haiti in U.S. parishes the weekend after an earthquake shattered that country.
In our catechesis on medieval Christian culture, we now consider the movement of ecclesial reform promoted by the two great Mendicant Orders.
In my 16 years of Catholic education many years ago, we were told to avoid reading books on the Index of Forbidden Books. But we were never told what they are. Is there such a list today? If so, where could we find it?
Papal social teaching says that if we work to protect the environment, we are preparing the way for peace. If we work for justice, peace will eventually follow. Economic development is prerequisite to the attainment of world peace.
Our New Testament readings this Sunday speak of the presence of Jesus in the Holy Spirit. In the reading from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus comes out from his fast in the desert to begin his public ministry in Nazareth, the town in which he grew up.
This week's installment of Faith Alive examines the Gospel of Luke.
In Luke’s Gospel, the Spirit plays a decisive role in realizing God’s plan of salvation. Jesus is born as God’s Son through the Spirit’s presence in Mary (1:35). The Spirit filled Elizabeth when Mary visited her, stirring John the Baptist in the womb to acknowledge the yet-to-be-born Jesus as Lord (1:41-45).
Listening during this new liturgical year to the Gospel according to St. Luke, it may help to note some of Luke's favorite things — the themes and perspectives that make his Gospel unique. Each of Luke's accounts gives us a unique view of Jesus and his mission.
Luke’s Gospel especially is full of images that stir hearts and connect with human emotions and experiences. It takes very little imagination, for example, to picture the Pharisee praying in the temple while the tax collector humbly admits his sinfulness (18:9-14). Almost no one can miss the message in that simple story.
One can only wonder how many times the "most excellent Theophilus" (Lk 1:3) approached Luke with earnest questions about his Christian faith before Luke decided to write down his orderly sequence of events pertaining to the life, death, resurrection and church of Jesus Christ.
