Practical Tips for Lent

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent. It begins six weeks of attempting to deepen our relationship with Jesus, Lent is the prelude for the celebration of his passion, death, and resurrection that saved all humankind, including you. Usually people give up things as their Lenten practice, things like candy and TV. All […]

Why Our Lady of Lourdes? Prayer and Penance

Today is February 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. There are 69 approved miracles of physical healing that occurred at Lourdes, France. (About 7,000 have been submitted.) But perhaps there are many more miracles of spiritual healing resulting from Mary’s visit to Earth back in 1858. I’m willing to bet that almost every […]

Fasting in Lent in Order to Feast

One of the three spiritual disciplines Christians practice during Lent is fasting. (The other two are prayer and almsgiving. The three practices have their origin in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6.) We must eat in order to live, and fortunately God has made eating pleasurable for us . . . except when the […]

Why Penance? Why Friday? Why Fish?

I grew up near Lake Erie. Every so often our neighbor Joe brought my mother some fish he caught. She was grateful, except for the fact that she would have to clean and debone them. You might wonder why we Catholics eat fish on Lenten Fridays. It began when Christians gave up meat as a […]

Deny Yourself? A Disciple’s Requirement

This week I directed a Bible study on next Sunday’s readings. The Gospel passage, Matthew 16:21–27, includes statements that Jesus made about discipleship. Doing research on these gave me new insight into the meaning of “deny yourself.” I thought I’d share this with you. First some background. All the statements explain what it means to […]