May 18, 2025
Our faith calls us to be engaged in the world we live in — to be the change we want to see. We all have our own personal experiences with the Divine. For those of us who are Christian, Jesus Christ is how we best experience and understand God. Are you willing to share some of the stories of what God has done in your life? Or will they never again be heard or have any impact beyond your death? If we consider ourselves to be believers, if faith is a foundational part of our life’s journey, if God factors into our worldview, are we bold enough to make sure others know that about us and see that in the way we conduct our lives? If so, we are doing our part to keep the stories alive. And that is evangelization.
It’s on us now to keep the all-important message of Christ alive and moving forward. Might you be willing to share the good news of God’s love and truth in order to invite others into God’s world and extend the reign of God on earth? After all, introducing someone to Jesus Christ could monumentally change their life for the better. Pope John Paul II believed the Good News of Jesus Christ was capable of renewing the human race. It has in the past. It can again. No time like the present to be a bearer of Good News!
May 11, 2025
Do you have in your jewelry collection a cross necklace? Do you wear it as a fashion statement or as a purposeful faith declaration, especially outside of the church building? Do you have a tendency to support charitable organizations that support Christian principles or that represent the long-standing charitable efforts of the Catholic Church? Might you be willing to discuss with others why those are important to you and why you support the good work those charities do?
Do you intentionally schedule social activities around a priority of church activities? If someone invited you to join them for breakfast, would you be bold enough to declare your availability only after you attended morning Mass or an hour of adoration? Might you be willing to get involved with ministries that allow you to take “church” to the wider community and share your faith with those living in nursing homes, or those who are hospitalized or those who could use a home visit that includes prayer and communion? All of these are acts of evangelization.
May 4, 2025
We often segment our lives, keeping our faith separate from our other views, beliefs and actions. How might we bridge those divides? Our actions and the way we live can be forms of preaching. If the Risen Christ has impacted your life, then your life can be a testimony to God. To be a disciple is to live in conformity to Christ. If you are a parent or a grandparent, talking about God or teaching your family about God is evangelizing. Another thing you can do is attribute things of beauty to God. When you see a beautiful sunrise, sunset or landscape, do you recognize and credit God’s role as Creator in those? If you are willing to express that out loud, you are evangelizing.
Might you be willing to read a spiritual book or magazine, such as a pocket New Testament or a prayer book in a public place, like on an airplane or waiting for an appointment in your doctor’s office? If so, you are publicly declaring that you are a person of faith, without saying a word. Our St. Thomas library makes numerous books, magazines and resources available for our use. Do you display holy objects — sacramentals — in your house where they may be seen by guests and visitors? If not, are you willing to hang a cross on the wall, add a Mary statue to a shelf or put a Bible on a coffee table? These are ways to evangelize without words.
April 27, 2025
As we said last week, prayer is an action of evangelization. When you speak blessings on your kids or others, you are invoking God and witnessing to the presence of God in everyday life events. Our parish offers holy water which you can take home and use for blessings. Do you pray before family meals at home? If not, might you be willing to start? Are you willing to do so even with guests present? If you are really gutsy, you might even conspicuously pray at your table when your meal arrives out in a public restaurant. That’s definitely evangelization.
If someone asked you how you might handle a difficult situation, would you be inclined to immediately act as a healing presence and lend them a listening and compassionate ear? Would you tell them you would pray for them in their struggle? Would you pray over them right then and there? If not, what would you need to do to get comfortable doing that? How might our parish help you boost your confidence to become a prayer warrior?
April 20, 2025
Our focus in this column series remains on evangelization. Prayer is an action of evangelization. And there is no greater prayer action in our Catholic tradition than the Mass. Every Sunday we gather to celebrate as if it’s a mini-Easter — because it is! But today we celebrate the original Easter. The events of Easter Sunday are indeed the Good News of Jesus Christ. Today caps off the Greatest Story Ever Told with the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Not only did God break into our lowly human condition, but God transformed our plight by bringing life out of death.
The numbers of people who typically show up for an Easter Sunday Mass is a witness to the impact of the story of Jesus’ life. All the bells and whistles that make up the Easter Vigil testify to the magnitude of this annual remembrance. We proclaim the Exsultet! We hear more of the story of our salvation history through additional scripture readings. And we welcome new members through baptism into the Body of Christ; members who evangelize the rest of us through their demonstration of courage and commitment to become Christian disciples. May we all be so bold! A very Blessed and Happy Easter to all!
April 13, 2025
Let’s explore more ways to evangelize. Every attempt to cultivate a more ethical conscience, to see how God sees, or to work for the common good can stand as a proclamation of faith. God is eternally present. There are endless possibilities for professing, living and celebrating that Presence, all of which are acts of evangelism. For example, if you personally participate in adult faith formation activities and programs such as ALPHA, retreats or missions, you’re demonstrating interest in your own spiritual growth, which can enhance your relationship with God. The internet offers online programs to help us learn the teachings of our Church, including the Catechism in a Year podcast.
Participating in a bible study, either in-person or online, is also a good way to grow in faith. Perhaps you’ve heard of The Bible in One Year podcast. St. Thomas offers bible studies in person on Wednesday and Thursday mornings and via Zoom on Thursday evenings. Mentioning to someone that you are part of a bible study is a statement of personal faith. Adding spiritual books to your reading repertoire is another way to grow in faith. And growing in your own faith can make evangelization easier. Perhaps you could find someone to read those books with you and discuss them. Have you ever considered forming your own faith-based book club?
April 6, 2025
How can we show others that God is present and active today and every day, especially in our own lives? Perhaps it’s easiest to start right at church. When you show up for Mass and participate in communal worship, you are acknowledging that God plays a role in your life and you are physically witnessing to a desire for spiritual renewal and conversion. When you partake of the gift of the sacraments that our Church offers, especially those that are repeatable like Eucharist and Reconciliation, you are demonstrating your belief in the tangible gifts that God makes available to you and in their capacity to change you for the better.
If you are involved in ministries of service or education or administration here at St. Thomas, you are engaged in active evangelism. As Christian disciples, your acts of service on behalf of others are a personal witness to your faith in Christ and the Christian way. Helping the parish by serving as a catechist is a great way to evangelize yourself — to grow in your own relationship with Jesus Christ and to learn about our Church. Plus it’s a built-in opportunity to share all that with others.
March 30, 2025
The Catholic Church is not just an institution; it’s a living being — the Body of Christ. We are the living, breathing members of that Body. We are the Church — the public continuation and manifestation of Jesus Christ’s presence in the world. That means we are part of the evangelization process. And members of our Church throughout all these centuries felt inspired and compelled to perpetuate our Catholic Christian customs, scriptures, traditions and teachings in order to feed their own faith and the faith of those who would come after them.
So now it’s our turn. We are modern-day Christian disciples. We are players in the ongoing Great Story of Jesus Christ. Will we do our part to keep the legacy of Jesus Christ alive? How might we do that? Many of us find it a challenge to speak of God in a world that is becoming more and more hostile to God. But that’s why it’s all the more important that we do so. And the fact is, we can show the work of God in the world even without explicitly talking about it. How? Think about it — and we’ll offer some of our ideas starting next week.
March 23, 2025
The angels evangelized by announcing the coming of Emmanuel — God with us — at the birth of Jesus. Jesus himself evangelized with his life, especially through his public ministry of life-giving words and sacrificial actions. The apostles evangelized by keeping Jesus’ story alive — the Greatest Story ever told. And for the next 2,000 years, the Church Jesus Christ established evangelized and continues to do so. St. Pope Paul VI said “The Church exists in order to evangelize.”
Our Church evangelizes by proclaiming the gospel — the Good News of Jesus Christ captured in scripture — during the Liturgy of the Word at every Mass she celebrates daily, worldwide. She further evangelizes by preaching Christ and his sacrificial acts of love in every Homily. She evangelizes by teaching the life, death and resurrection of Christ to her members and to the larger cultures in which she exists. She evangelizes by offering all the sacraments instituted by Christ to confer graces upon her members. And Mother Church evangelizes by bearing witness to Christ through her actions of charity and social justice throughout the world. What good is knowing something important if you’re not willing to share it? Every gesture and action of loving kindness toward another, in imitation of Christ, is essentially an act of evangelization.
March 16, 2025
St. Paul not only preached the gospel, he also lived the gospel. Throughout the past 20 centuries, our Church has amassed a whole slew of saints who birthed Christ into the world in their time and place as a result of Christ’s transformative presence in their own lives. They were evangelists in that their lives witnessed to the life of Christ. We could not call ourselves Christian today without the 2,000 years worth of Christian ancestors in faith who preceded us and evangelized — keeping the good news of Jesus Christ alive.
We all seem to agree that the world we live in needs more virtue, hope, compassion and mercy. But who is responsible for bringing all of those things to the world? All of us are. We can’t really leave that up to our political, social and economic leaders. They have certainly fallen down on that job. But so have we. Our world needs a good and beautiful message — an “evangel.” The world received such a message 2,000 years ago at the birth of Christ and it was so powerful, it profoundly changed the course of human history.
March 9, 2025
Because the witness of Jesus’ words and actions were so compelling, his disciples kept the stories of him alive. They continued to travel and speak about Jesus and to practice the actions they had seen him do. Some of them put those stories into writing, which eventually became what we know as the New Testament portion of the Bible. We have four gospel accounts composed by four writers we call “evangelists.” The word “gospel” means good news. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John made sure they proclaimed their faith in Jesus as the long-awaited messiah, the Anointed One, the Christ, because to them, that was indeed good news.
Christianity could not have spread worldwide if only those four disciples had been willing to witness to Jesus Christ. The stories would have ceased to exist at the time of their deaths. Fortunately, Jesus hand picked disciples, who then commissioned other successors to follow their lead. They in turn did the same, so the tenets and the practices of the Christian faith would continue into future generations. In his first letter to the Corinthians (9:16), St. Paul, talking about the gospel, wrote that preaching the gospel was an obligation and “woe to me if I do not preach it.”
March 2, 2025
So how was Jesus the best evangelizer ever? To “evangelize” means to witness to the good news of Divine Presence at work in the world. And Jesus did that in spades. It was his life’s mission. Jesus was a dwelling place for Divine Presence. From that stance, he preached about God, taught about God and lived according to the nature of God. Jesus spent his public ministry pointing to God, which revealed who he was in relation to God. And he accomplished all that in spite of traveling on foot and rarely leaving the boundaries of Israel in his short 3-year ministry.
Jesus, in his humanity, dealt with the same limitations and struggles we all do. Yet, he managed to live out the fullness of the depths of a human life. He showed us how to live a fully whole, holy and loving human life by inviting others into his mind, toward transformation, toward humility and compassion, toward love and hope, toward forgiveness and mercy. And he tried to teach his disciples how to do the same.
February 23, 2025
So what do we mean when we say the word “evangelization?” We’re talking about the willingness to witness to the reality of God’s presence in the world. The Jewish prophets were evangelists; they spoke truth to power, sharing God’s words and intentions with the people of Israel in order to bring about faith and conversion. In Jesus’ time, John the Baptist acted as an evangelist when he said he “came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” (John 1:8-9) So who was the greatest evangelist of all time?
It wasn’t Billy Graham, even though he preached to millions of people across the globe throughout his decades of public ministry. It wasn’t even St. Paul who went on three mission trips over the course of eleven years to bring the good news of the Risen Christ to thousands of people living in the ancient Near East in the early first century. It was Jesus. Think on that for a bit.
February 16, 2025
We refer to our four Gospel writers as “evangelists” because they wrote about the good news of Emmanuel, God with us. If you look at the words evangel and evangelist, at their root is the word “angel.” The English word angel comes from a word that means “messenger.” So the angels in Luke’s gospel were deliverers of good messages. They were acting as evangelists when they were sharing the good news of God’s presence in the world in a newborn named Jesus. Our recent Homily Series here at St. Thomas focused on evangelization and the responsibility of each one of us in the process. If you are a baptized Christian, then you personally have a responsibility to evangelize. Does that scare you?
What does the word “evangelization” stir up in you? When you hear it, does your mind go to someone standing in the middle of a public square or on a street corner or in a large auditorium, preaching about Jesus and the gospels? Depending on your age, you might be envisioning Billy Graham or Joel Osteen. And most of us could never imagine ourselves doing that. It’s so — public! It seems to automatically invite criticism and critique. Plus, many of us have a fear of public speaking.
February 9, 2025
Luke 2:10 described Jesus’ birth as “good news of great joy that will be for all the people.” Those same shepherds who received that good news then headed to Bethlehem to find the infant Jesus. And after they found him, they “made known the message that had been told them about this child.” (Luke 2:17-18) News that noteworthy should not be kept a secret. So the shepherds shared this good news. And “all who heard it were amazed.”
The shepherds were so taken with this event that they headed back to their communities, “glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen.” Shouldn’t we be willing to praise God for all the amazing things that we have heard and seen? The dictionary defines any good news or glad tiding as an “evangel.” Ponder that word for a bit. We’ll come back to it next week.
February 2, 2025
This past December, the celebration of the Jewish feast of Hanukkah overlapped with Christmas. Hanukkah is a remembrance of the miracle of light. Jewish law promotes “publicizing the miracle” to let the world know about the power of light. Jewish communities around the world are encouraged to display candles in their windows and to process with lit candles through the streets. We Christians consider Jesus to be the “light of the world.” Shouldn’t we be willing to promote that publicly?
Those who were major players at the beginning of Jesus’ life certainly did. Scripture (Luke 1-2) tells us it was an angel who announced to Mary that she would bear a son, she should name him Jesus and he would be called Son of the Most High. After Jesus was born, it was an angel who announced to shepherds in the fields that the Messiah had been born. It seems angels played a big role in sharing the good news of God’s Presence through the birth of the Anointed One into the world.
January 26, 2025
Last week this column wrapped up a 6-month series on the contributions of the Catholic Church to civilization. Our intention was not to brag on our Church. The motive was to remind us about the many good things that impacted human history because of those who were personally transformed by faith in Jesus Christ. Christian disciples, over the past 2,000 years, made many advances in the fields of philosophy, psychology, science, art, education, law and economics, all with a desire to help humanity thrive.
The goal of Christian discipleship is to more closely imitate Christ. Through our thoughts, our words and especially our actions, it’s our mission to make Christ known to the world around us. We’ve recently wrapped up the Christmas season — one of the major events on our annual liturgical calendar. Mary factored heavily into the story; we give her credit for birthing Christ into the world. But it’s our job as modern-day disciples to continue to birth Christ into the world. How can we do that? Stay with us — and together, we’ll explore some ways.
January 19, 2025
As we come to the conclusion of this series on Catholic contributions to civilization, we leave you with some words of the great second century saint and martyr, Justin, writing to defend the Christian faith to the opponents all around him. Here is the gist of Justin’s letter: We (Christians) beseech him in prayer that we may rise to life everlasting because of our faith in him. Our teacher of these things is Jesus Christ, who was born for this purpose … we worship him with reason, since we have learned that he is the Son of the living God himself … we (Christians) have separated ourselves from demons and have attached ourselves to the only unbegotten God, through his Son. We who once reveled in impurities now cling to purity; we who devoted ourselves to the arts of magic now consecrate ourselves to the good God; we who loved above all else the ways of acquiring riches and possessions now hand over to a community fund what we possess and share it with every needy person; we who hated and killed one another and would not share our hearth with those of another tribe because of their different customs, now … live together with them, and pray for our enemies, and try to convince them that they should live according to the good commands of Christ so they may have a firm hope of receiving the same reward as ourselves from God who governs all.
We face the same opponents today — yet we are still called to cling to the original Christian ideals which, as we know, is no easy task. May we modern-day Christian disciples continue to transform the world for the better.
January 12, 2025
Being a Catholic Christian is still a high calling. We live in the midst of a secular world that continues to over-emphasize human reason and technology, as if those represent the height of wisdom. The world continues to attempt to push God out of the equation of our life journeys. We humans continue to generate ideologies that denigrate the human person. Modern philosophies continue to attempt to suppress the influences of family, of religion and church, of long-standing traditions and of charity.
And yet, our Church continues to doggedly promote the dignity of all human persons, to teach that all we do has lasting value and to abide by the philosophy that love, humility and peace will endure to the end and eventually prevail. All this is evidenced by the legacy our Church has left the world, especially through the contributions of the long list of saints who have gone before us. They exemplify the best of humanity and point to the enduring benefits that can come from taking the high road. The saints are among the greatest fruits of the Catholic Church. Their lives testify to the fact that trying to conform our lives more closely to the life of Christ is worth the effort.
January 5, 2025
As we begin our wrap-up of this series on Catholic contributions to civilization, we are reminded that Jesus often spoke of the Kingdom of God which he said was not of this world. And yet he called disciples to himself to teach them how to manifest God’s kingdom to this world. Those early disciples gathered in community to keep alive the thoughts, words and actions of Jesus. That small first community of Christian disciples grew into the global Catholic Church, intended to be the visible representation of what God’s Kingdom could look like on earth. Christianity is the most pervasive social movement that ever happened worldwide. No one changed the world or had the global impact that Jesus had. His life, death and resurrection re-formed intellects, motivated social welfare actions, raised the bar on human morality and pervaded every aspect of life across global geographies, cultures, languages and customs.
Over the centuries, members of the Catholic Church have gifted the world with an enduring legacy of benevolence, educational institutions, artistic and aesthetic masterpieces, scientific advancements, humane legal practices, philosophies regarding human rights and protections, spiritual practices and devotions, and theological explanations. The Catholic Church has indeed made innumerable contributions to the civilization of peoples across the globe. And the world we live in seems to need that now, as much as ever.
December 29, 2024
Adopting a philosophy of rights for all classes of people led Christians to offer all kinds of care to the neediest among them. In the days of Jesus, women and children could always be found among the neediest. The Roman Empire view of women was that they were second-class citizens. Divorce was common and a man was allowed to divorce his wife for little or no reason, which would leave her with no resources or security. But Christianity recognized women’s dignity and partnership. Eventually our Church elevated marriage to a sacrament in order to protect women and children and to promote the ideal of the family as an eternal relationship reflecting the ongoing and unbreakable love between the persons of the Trinity.
We know that women were included among those who helped to support Jesus in his role as an itinerant preacher. Scripture (Luke 8:3) recognizes Joanna and Susanna for their financial assistance to Jesus’ public ministry. The status of Jesus’ mother Mary became an icon for our Church. Young women were supported in their choice to consecrate themselves to Christ rather than to accept arranged marriages, especially to pagans. Some of these women were elevated to saintly status. Still today we honor the dedication and sacrifices of Saints Agnes, Lucy, Agatha and Cecilia.
December 22, 2024
This column series is still exploring the magnitude of influence of our Christian faith on the promotion of human flourishing. In the interest of human rights, Christianity also had an influence on law systems. Some of our modern legal traditions came from Greek philosophy and Roman law systems. But they were adapted to reflect a Christian worldview and to operate within a Christian framework. This really ramped up in the eleventh century when the Catholic Church founded and supported institutions of higher learning, including law schools, which created a body of law that still informs our Western legal traditions.
In the thirteenth century, “trial by ordeal” was a common legal practice. A judge would order a painful punishment for a supposed crime and then determine the guilt or innocence of the person based on their response to the ordeal. This was the basis of the witch trials. The Catholic Church outlawed that practice in 1215 at the Lateran Council, preferring rules of fair play. Such rules spawned other modern-day laws which include: requiring evidence for conviction of a crime; only lawful detention of the accused; the requirement to show no reasonable doubt in order to prosecute; good faith principles which served the international trade systems; trial by a jury of peers; and the assumption of innocence until proven guilty.
December 15, 2024
Given its stance on human rights and its notion of freedom, Christianity has a history of being behind the abolition of slavery. Slavery was a social norm throughout most of human history. Many cultures viewed certain categories of people as natural slaves. Pagan and pre-Christian cultures all over the world did not question slavery; mass slavery and human sacrifice were common. Christianity introduced many doubts about the legitimacy of slavery as an accepted practice. In the first century, St. Paul’s letter to Philemon asked him as a slave owner to see his former slave Onesimus as a brother in Christ rather than as his slave. St. Patrick, in the fifth century, campaigned against slavery, since he himself had once been forced into slave labor and captivity.
In the seventeenth century, the Catholic Church’s official stance on slavery via the Papal Holy Office was that slavery was wrong and all captors, buyers and owners of slaves were to free them and compensate them. Unfortunately, Church members often ignored the official Church teaching on this matter. We do have saints in our history, such as St. John of Matha (1160-1213), who worked tirelessly to redeem slaves by buying them in order to set them free. We also have missionaries who openly preached against the harsh treatment of native peoples by their Spanish masters. Unfortunately, we also know other missionaries were fully complicit in slavery. Though the Catholic Church has been officially condemning slavery throughout its history, here in the United States our Church has all too frequently acted in noncompliance with the ideal. It is still a topic of relevance. In our time, Pope Francis in his 2020 encyclical Fratelli Tutti decried the practice of human trafficking.
December 8, 2024
Freedom is a word we kick around frequently, but we seem to have forgotten what it really means. Freedom does not mean license to do what we want. In our human frailty, we too often choose things that actually enslave or bind us and take away our freedom. Pornography and drugs that lead to addiction serve as examples. The Catholic Church defines genuine freedom as the ability to love what God loves and to choose the better part, without any barriers or obstacles getting in the way of doing just that. This is what allows us to achieve our full human potential as God intended for us.
And so our Church defends the concept of freedom of the human person and human choices due to the belief in free will. We can accept or reject God’s grace. God wanted a relationship with us and our freedom to choose is what makes love possible. Some early Christian Reformers of the sixteenth century denied free will and accepted the concept of determinism. They taught that our salvation or damnation was pre-determined by God and we could do nothing to alter it. But that philosophy denies the personal dignity with which God created humans. Our Catholic worldview is that we are not just animals or gene machines. The Catholic Church continues to promote the elevation of all human beings as persons with inherent dignity.
December 1, 2024
More modern day Papal encyclicals confirm our Church’s position that all people have basic human rights by virtue of their humanity. Pope John Paul II addressed this issue during his pontificate in the encyclical Evangelium Vitae — the Gospel of Life. It was Pope Leo XIII writing Rerum Novarum in 1891 who marked the beginning of our modern tradition of Catholic social doctrine. Our Catholic Social Teaching continues to state that every person has a fundamental right to life and a right to those things required for human decency. We are also called to remember that rights come with responsibilities, obligations and duties, as that is the part of the equation we tend to forget.
The United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights, published in 1948, declared that all people had a right to life, liberty and security. The declaration called for an end to slavery, torture and discrimination in legal protection. It also promoted the right to freedom of thought, opinion, religion, work, just wages, education and peaceful assembly. One of the notable individuals who helped to draft the UN declaration was the well-known Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain.
November 24, 2024
The Christian worldview saw all life as sacred and treating all people with dignity was their due, as they were reflections of and earthly representatives of God. This philosophy led to the concept of human rights and the hope of fair and just treatment for all. As disciples made in the image of God, we recognize that our actions toward others are actually actions toward God. Jesus said we must recognize that the way we treat the least of our brothers (and sisters) is how we treat him (see Matthew 25:40).
We can see this philosophy exemplified in the life of Francisco de Vitoria, a Spanish Dominican theologian of the 16th century. de Vitoria was a university professor during the era of the Spanish empire expansion into the New World. He saw no good reason for European rulers to have dominion over native peoples who had natural rights to possess and use goods, to ownership of property and to their own rulers. Some people of his time believed indigenous peoples were subhuman, beyond reason, making them natural slaves. de Vitoria disagreed. He believed they were human beings with fundamental rights based on natural law, reason and Scripture — even if they were not Christian. He also believed it was unjust of the Spanish conquerors to force them to convert to Christianity. He thought all people should be allowed to accept the faith by their own free will.
November 17, 2024
Today we pretty much take for granted the notion that all people have basic human rights. But that was not always the case. The concept of inherent human rights is a Christian invention. Most civilizations in the ancient world never concerned themselves with the idea of whether or not all people should be treated with respect simply by virtue of being human. The nobility of most ancient societies primarily cared about how useful or productive people were to them as laborers, as consumers and as tax payers. The ancient Greeks and Romans distained people who were poor. They believed poor people were at fault for being of a lesser nature. Caste systems were common.
It was Christianity that promoted the idea that all people are valuable because they are made in the image of God (see Genesis 1:27). Early Christians sold their goods and helped take care of the poor, which is described in Acts 2:45. During times of great plagues and rampant death, it was Christians who ministered to the dying and buried the dead. Many of them also died from contracting the same diseases. Following the first Church Council in Nicaea in 325, construction began on hospitals in towns that had a cathedral. Throughout the past 20 centuries, our Church built hospitals, schools, universities and orphanages to attend to the needs of the vulnerable, regardless of their gender, economic status or religion. The Catholic Church is still the largest provider of medical services and charity in the world.
November 10, 2024
As we continue our series on Catholic contributions to civilization, let’s take a look at some additional ways that religious faith helped to elevate humanity. The Christian way was to take the high road of goodness, right action and benevolence. For the ancient Greeks, goodness meant being a good citizen of the state. But very few could do that. It was really only available to the elite few who were not slaves and who were educated and wealthy, as that was how good citizenship was defined. But for Christians, the path to goodness was not dependent on education, wealth or status, so it was available to everyone. Christians saw it as their calling to act uprightly and to assist those in need of any kind.
Christianity emphasized acting in imitation of Christ, which included the virtues of humility, patience, self-control and compassion. Everyone was seen as capable of such behavior. That meant everyone could become a saint and participate in the glory of the kingdom of heaven. That path was open to include male and female, slave and free, able bodied and disabled, and rich and poor alike. The Christian way also included living from an attitude of joy, hope and mercy. These were attributes hard to come by in the ancient world. Do we who call ourselves Christian today live from this worldview?
November 3, 2024
Some cultures did not have a language until the gospels came to them. The use of Latin and Greek alphabets aided literacy. St. Augustine of Canterbury came to England around 600 CE, sent by Pope Gregory the Great. He brought copies of the Gospels which helped to transmit the Word of God. The desire to know the sacred scriptures inspired literacy. Christianity helped shape other alphabets such as the Armenian, Georgian and Slavic languages.
The Catholic Church not only gave us the New Testament and our current biblical canon, but through the centuries also inspired great literature encompassing the life stories and spiritual journeys of many saints, including Augustine, Thomas a’ Kempis, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross and Therese of Lisieux. The Catholic worldview offered depth of story and helped shape writers of other great and well known literary works including Dante, Tolkien, Chesterton, Flannery O’Connor, Graham Greene and Jacques Maritain.
October 27, 2024
Most of us enjoy good food and beverages and hopefully have some level of appreciation for those who are engaged in the culinary arts. We know from our Scripture stories that Jesus was a frequent guest at dinners and weddings. In his preaching, he often likened heaven to a feast or wedding banquet. Our Mass is considered to be a memorial meal, with a highlight being the sacrament of the eucharistic bread and wine. Since wine was an element used in the Mass, early Christian communities planted vineyards in order to have the wine they needed for the celebration of all of their Masses.
Many early monastic communities were skilled agriculturists and they became well known for quality winemaking. For approximately 1,000 years, the world’s best wines were made by religious orders, both for liturgical use and for economic trade. The vineyards of Champagne, France were especially well-respected since the late 1600s, due to the wine making innovations of a Benedictine monk by the name of Dom Perignon, who created new blends, new methods for pressing the grapes and new storage methods using glass.
October 20, 2024
In a previous series, this column reminded us that the Catholic Church gave the world Gregorian chant, popularized by Pope Gregory the Great during his papacy from 590 to 604 CE. Our Church also gave the world the psalms in recognizable song version and the divine office sung by monks in monasteries. All of this music was meant to both express and evoke great emotion. Religious music was relaxing, uplifting and harmonic. The Italian monk Guido d’Arezzo developed musical notation (staff and notes) around 1000 CE, which allowed music to be reproduced. Composers could then more easily develop liturgical music for worship and choral traditions for congregations and oratories which told a story. The Catholic Church gave the world the likes of the brilliant and enduring musical compositions of Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Schubert and Vivaldi.
Here at St. Thomas the Apostle parish, we know quite well the significance that the choice of liturgical music plays in our worship services. Though we rarely turn to the classical music of the past, we do enjoy our modern day Catholic composers who offer us memorable melodies and profound and poetic lyrics. The universal Catholic Church worldwide employs a vast array of musical styles and expressions to bring life and vitality to our celebrations.
October 13, 2024
Christian artistic expression was not just confined to the buildings themselves. The interior spaces of the church buildings offered additional opportunities for artistic expression. Church buildings were often decorated with stained glass to let in the light and to add color. Sanctuary spaces were adorned with altars, crucifixes, icons, mosaics, and statues. The books of the gospels held places of prominence. Artistry continued to evolve over the centuries, possibly culminating in the Renaissance period. This great period of history with regard to religious art brought us some of the masters, including Michelangelo, da Vinci and Caravaggio.
If you consider our parish church buildings today and all of the décor within, we can find all sorts of tangible items that not only represent our faith, but also add beauty to our space: a water font for baptisms; the depictions of the Stations of the Cross for meditation on the stages of Jesus’ Passion; the various cabinetry, some of which hold the sacred oils used to confer sacramental graces; the tabernacle that houses the Blessed Sacrament; statues of some of our most beloved saints; and various other symbols of our faith such as patens, chalices, crosses, palm fronds, cloths, tables and chairs, lecterns and floral arrangements.
October 6, 2024
In the 4th century when Christianity became a legal religion, existing Roman and Greek influenced structures were put to use by the Catholic Church. Buildings such as basilicas were gifted to the Church and they became places of worship. Religion was the motivation for creating beautiful buildings. Churches and basilicas were houses of God’s presence — holy spaces that housed the People of God. Christianity, because of the Incarnation, believed God could be found in matter — in the physical and the tangible. And our relationship with God was intended to be personal and intimate. The beauty of the lines of the buildings were intended to manifest that.
Early Christian architecture borrowed from the styles of the Romans and the Greeks. Eventually these were combined to form the Romanesque style. But that style gave way to the Gothic — a truly and purely Christian form, well-decorated and coming to a point or pinnacle to draw the eye, the mind and the heart to God above. The buildings themselves were carved of stone because they were meant to last for a long time. And so many of these buildings have withstood the test of time, drawing worldwide pilgrims and tourists to visit them and take in their beauty and majesty.
September 29, 2024
Even in the early days of Christianity, during the periods of persecution, disciples produced drawings and icons of Jesus, Mary and the Magi in the catacombs as expressions of their faith. Early art was mostly visual and anonymous. Art was a means of expressing emotions and was intended to touch the emotions of the viewer, especially with regard to the artist’s understanding and feelings toward God. Art engaged the physical senses; it was an expression of beauty, meant to point to the glory of God rather than to the glory of the artist. People shared their artistic talents for the benefit and the good of others.
But artistic expression can come in forms beyond mere pictorial drawings. Throughout the centuries of Christianity, people of faith have produced works of beauty through architecture, music, literature and even culinary delights. The art produced by those of great faith are examples of people using their natural gifts to not only glorify God, but to show their gratitude to God for those gifts. Their art expressed their understanding of the world of the transcendent and the state of their souls. Next week, we’ll take a look at the significance of Christian architecture.
September 22, 2024
This column series on Catholic Church contributions to civilization has already covered the disciplines of education and science. So we’ll turn now to things of beauty — to the visual and tangible arts. Our human minds are capable of tremendous imagination and creativity. And we have a tendency to try to manifest our creative ideas into physical, artistic expressions. We have long known about cave paintings in France, Spain and Germany and throughout Europe that experts date to approximately 30,000 years ago. Newer discoveries in Indonesia date cave art there to even earlier periods.
Many cave paintings depicted the flora and fauna common to their place and time. Historic experts often interpreted those paintings to have spiritual meanings — they told stories and reflected religious practices. Ancient art techniques included drawing, painting, engraving, stenciling, sculpting and carving figurines, and works involving beads. It’s no wonder that early Christians in the first century CE, who were predominantly illiterate, would use artistic means to express their new-found religious beliefs.
September 15, 2024
Our Church has long promoted the idea of a rational universe — that the world we live in is ordered and intelligible. Science refers to the methodology we use to discover and explain what is already there. Our Catholic history includes other less-well-known individuals who have contributed to the study of multiple sciences. The Jesuit order focused on education, especially at the university level, which taught all the sciences as part of their curricula. Many Jesuit universities established physical observatories on their campus grounds in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the mid-1800s, most seismology centers world-wide were originally established and run by Jesuits to track volcanic and earthquake eruptions.
A French Catholic mathematician and mechanical engineer by the name of Gaspard de Coriolis is responsible for positing the equation used to describe the motion of a rotating body. In essence, in the early 1800s he figured out how hurricanes and cyclones work. Known as the Coriolis effect, the science behind the rotation of storms bears his name. The number of Catholic contributors to the sciences is too numerous to mention. Our Church is still a major promoter of and worldwide educator of students in all fields of scientific studies.
September 8, 2024
Many global voyages — especially during the Age of Discovery (approximately 1400–1600) — were both launched and funded by the Catholic Church. These were very perilous voyages undertaken by the likes of Columbus, Magellan, Cortes and Ponce de Leon. These explorers constructed more accurate maps and gave us a sense of the expansiveness of the globe, all at great risk to themselves and their travel companions.
Some scientists pushed their love of exploration beyond the natural elements of the earth and set their sights on the larger cosmos. Among these were Copernicus and Galileo, astronomers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In more modern times, the concept of the Big Bang, the predominant scientific explanation of the origins of the universe, was first proposed by the Catholic priest Georges Lamaitre around 1927.
September 1, 2024
In the late thirteenth century, Fr. Roger Bacon, a Franciscan Friar, studied nature through empirical testing. He eventually produced writings on mathematics, alchemy and medicines, grammar and linguistics, and astronomy. He read and studied the work of Greek and Arabic scholars on optics. He is often credited as one of the earliest European advocates of the scientific method of questioning, researching, hypothesizing and testing facts through experimentation and data analysis.
Fr. Bacon was particularly interested in optics and studied the physiology of the eye, the impact of light, light refraction and mirrors and lenses. He is considered to be the inventor of the magnifying glass and was a contributor to the development of optics. Around the year 1300, Catholic clergy were found to be wearing eyeglasses. Fr. Bacon also added the study of optics to the university curricula already in place during medieval times.
August 25, 2024
Most cultures throughout history believed that time was circular, which meant everything just comes back around and repeats itself. This did not allow for new things or for progress toward future developments. The measurement of time in hours, days and years suggested beginnings, middles and ends and captured linear progression. As we mentioned last week, in the eighth century St. Bede reoriented the Christian sense of time by linking the significance of the ongoing human story from the birth of Jesus Christ. Mechanical clocks later became part of the technology of the 1400s to measure time.
We also keep a calendar to mark the movement of time. The calendar that is the most widely used around the world today comes from Pope Gregory XIII. It replaced the Roman calendar set by Julius Caesar, known as the Julian calendar, which marked the beginning of the year on January first. We still observe January 1 as the beginning of the new calendar year. But in 1582, Pope Gregory added in the calculation that gave us leap years, which was more accurate than the prior Julian calendar. We can thank our Church for the calendar we use to mark the progression of the days, months and years of our lives.
August 18, 2024
Since our Catholic clergy were among the most educated and literate of humans throughout the past 2,000 years of human history, they were able to make numerous contributions to the disciplines of the sciences. For example, this column has previously covered Saints Cosmas and Damian, charitable Christian brothers who served their communities as physicians in the third century. We have also covered the contributions of scientists such as Albert the Great, the thirteenth century teacher of Thomas Aquinas, as well as Gregor Mendel who is considered to be the father of modern day genetics. He was an Augustinian monk.
St. Bede the Venerable, who lived in the late seventh and early eighth centuries, was well versed in all of the sciences of his time including astronomy, arithmetic, grammar, philosophy and of course theology. He himself had been taught by scholarly monks. It was St. Bede who first introduced the term “Anno Domini” (AD) in writing, which translates into “the year of the Lord.” As a man of faith, he of course saw Jesus Christ at the center of human history. We Christians continue to mark time in reference to the life and death of Christ.
August 11, 2024
Throughout the centuries of Catholicism, women’s religious orders were established and began to flourish. They had a dramatic influence on society for the benefit of all, as religious sisters served as nurses, founded orphanages and hospitals, started up schools and served as teachers. This column in a previous series on the Saints addressed the contributions of the likes of Elizabeth Ann Seton, Frances Xavier Cabrini and Katherine Drexel, who founded women’s religious congregations, the parochial school system and subsequently numerous schools and universities in the United States, including those that served people of color.
Today the Catholic Church is one of the largest institutions providing education in the world through all grades and levels from grammar schools to universities and programs of higher learning. Our faith-based educational curricula reflect the belief in God as Creator in relationship with humans, who have been given the dignity of being co-creators with God. The human intellect is capable of great ideas, growth, expansion and progress. And our Catholic Church took that seriously with regard to its efforts to enlighten, instruct and develop people in the knowledge and skills necessary to help them flourish as God intended. Our Church teachings on salvation and eternity suggest that all we do has lasting value.
August 4, 2024
The start up of institutions for higher learning were the fruits of the Catholic Church which recognized the need to educate her clergy. Jesus had told his disciples to go out and teach all the nations. Generations of spiritual shepherds were educated in theology so they could share the Church’s faith traditions with their flocks. Priests then became teachers for others. Priests received their training through educational institutions that spawned the university systems of higher learning throughout Europe. Among the students of these first universities in the middle ages were the likes of monks such as Thomas Aquinas, who re-interpreted Greek philosophy for a Christian world. This impacted the development of the classic educational curriculum, beginning with the sciences of theology and philosophy.
Eventually grammar schools were developed to become the feeder system to the universities. Societies began to notice physical, social and economic improvements that were the result of greater literacy and the cultivating of the mind of more of the populace, including women. The first known female Ph.D. recipient was Elena Piscopia, an Italian Catholic who studied at the University of Padua. She received her degree in Philosophy in 1678 and went on to teach at the university level. Another Catholic Italian woman, Maria Agnesi, earned a degree in Mathematics and became a math Professor at the University of Bologna in the 18th century.
July 28, 2024
So let’s focus for a few weeks on the Catholic Church’s role in fostering education. Our Church leaders fully recognized the importance of ideas and the intellectual life. Early members of the Church saw the mind as a gift from God so they used their intellectual faculties to preserve ancient manuscripts. They copied and translated inspirational texts into a variety of languages. Among those important and beloved texts were the Jewish scriptures and the writings of our early Christian Church leaders, whose gospels about Jesus and letters to Church communities made up the content of the written New Testament as we know it today.
Thoughout the ensuing centuries our Catholic clergy were foremost among the educated and the literate in most societies. They continued to collect and copy our most precious written texts, especially regarding the life and death of Jesus. The gospel of John used the Greek term “logos” which means order and reason. The Catholic Church has always promoted our human reason and rationality as faculties that separate us from other categories of animals. But the use of reason does not negate faith. Our Church continues to maintain that both faith and reason can work in consonance with one another rather than being opposed to each other.
July 21, 2024
The Roman Empire had been very successful at unifying peoples of many different geographies, languages and cultures. The empire had one visible leader in the Emperor and everyone came under the one law. But when Rome fell, all that changed. The various barbarian chiefs and kings could not seem to come into agreement of how to rule this vast territory and its many diverse peoples, so they resorted to in-fighting. It was the Catholic Church that stood as a visible example of unity with its one visible leader in the Pope, one set of laws, one creed and set of beliefs.
The monks who survived the invasions also helped to convert the barbarians to Christian philosophies and theology. It was the monks who preserved Latin and Greek as spoken and written languages and who helped to preserve writings on law, mathematics, philosophy, grammar, poetry and literature. The Catholic bishops and monks were among the educated of the populace so they were the ones who were able to teach others to read and write. From the Church’s perspective, the most important writings they copied, preserved and kept alive were the sacred Scriptures. Through the centuries, the educated of our Church were instrumental in continuing to bring education and learning to the world. And that’s where we’re headed next.
July 14, 2024
Let’s continue our early Church history by focusing on the Goths, the Huns, the Franks and other groups who began to invade the outer limits of the Roman Empire. In 476, Rome was sacked and the Roman Empire began to collapse. This caused the demise of the Senate and the political system as well as the legal system and all the entrenched civil services that had been set up and executed in an orderly fashion by Rome. People looked to the authority structure of the Church, especially to the Bishops, to help bring order amidst the chaos. The Catholic Church leaders worked with the barbarian leaders to get society operating again. But of course the Church leaders also operated on the basis of faith and Christian morals, which they introduced to the pagan kings.
The Romans had established their legal system from the traditions that came from Greek philosophy. They were well known for their civil systems, their building projects and their ability to organize and implement civil programs. Church leaders had adopted the Roman Imperial model for governing by creating metropolitan areas and civil boundaries and systems of governance, but within a Christian framework. Christian practices began to prevail. It was the Christians who rallied to minister to plague victims, to care for the sick, to bury the dead and to try to feed the hungry. Unlike the barbarians, Christians believed that humans were made in the image and likeness of God and therefore, all human beings were persons with inherent dignity. We will revisit this all-important concept later in this series.
July 7, 2024
Let’s set up this new series on Catholic contributions with a bit of history. Christians endured on and off persecutions from the authorities of the Roman Empire over an approximately 300 year period. These persecutions and oppression of Christians began most notably during the reign of Emperor Nero in the year 64 AD with the burning of Rome for which Nero blamed the Christians, though history suggests it was Nero himself who set fire to the city. The era of major persecutions basically ended in the year 313 when the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity through his Edict of Milan. In 380, Christianity became the official state religion, creating an alliance between the Church and the Roman civil government.
These early years gave our Church some of its most dedicated and renowned leaders and saints, including Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin, Martyr and Irenaeus. During this time of persecutions and the centuries that followed, members of our Church who chose to dedicate themselves to prayer and the religious life often left the cities and the secular world to carry out their great devotion to Christ. We call these the Desert Fathers and Mothers. They lived simply, shared life in community and focused on prayer in imitation of Jesus. This gave rise to the “monastic” way of life — a life choice which ended up saving the monks during the barbarian invasions on the cities of the Roman Empire during the third and fourth centuries.
June 30, 2024
The Catholic Church has been a player on the world stage for the almost 2000 years of its existence, beginning with the public ministry of Jesus during his human journey. Our Church began simply enough with Jesus teaching his disciples about the ways of God and what God considered to be the fullness of how to live a human life. They obviously picked up where Jesus left off and continued his “way” of thinking, speaking, acting and living. In the ensuing centuries, more disciples jumped on the bandwagon and kept Christianity alive, growing and spreading. And that has made a major impact on the world as a force for good.
Knowing our full Church history reminds us that there were some very dark times and incidents perpetuated by the Christian populace over its 20 centuries. After all, in spite of our divine institution, our Church is comprised of sinful humans. But on the flip side, so many great contributions have been made to the world at large from Catholic players. So over the course of the Summer and Fall, this column will explore some of those developments in the fields of education, science, the arts, human rights, law and morality. It’s important that we remember the good things. So please meet us back here next week as we kick off our series on Catholic contributions to civilization.
June 23, 2024
Today we wrap up our series on uniquely Catholic beliefs and actions. After 2,000 years of Catholicism, the number and variety of our religious practices and devotions are too numerous to count. As our Church spread across the globe and became truly “catholic” which means universal, it began to reflect the multitude of cultures, geographies and languages that it encompassed. This resulted in a wonderful array of diversity, reflected in a vast treasure trove of locally and regionally influenced musical styles, colorful dress and costuming, architectural styles of worship spaces, and prayer experiences.
But the foundational Christian beliefs and practices remain. Unfortunately, we take many of these for granted. We too often lack appreciation or understanding for our deeply meaningful Catholic beliefs, customs and rituals. So we just go through the motions. Perhaps now that we are heading into a long stretch of Ordinary Time in our liturgical calendar, we could take the opportunity to revisit our Church teachings and practices in order to remind ourselves of their purposes, their richness and their truths. We are fortunate indeed to be Catholic Christians!
June 16, 2024
In the very early centuries of our Church, Christians began wearing medals bearing the image of a saint or martyr. In later centuries, pilgrims began sporting such medals marked with the image of the shrine at the holy site they were intending to visit. In more modern times, one of the most popular medals became known as the Miraculous Medal. Its origins begin with St. Catherine Laboure in 1830.
St. Catherine had a vision of Mary on November 27, 1830. Mary appeared, standing on a globe, crushing a serpent underneath her foot, with rays of light streaming out from her outstretched hands. Around her were the words “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” This image was engraved onto a medal. The other side of the medal bore an “M” with a bar and a cross over the hearts of Jesus and Mary. Mary was pierced with a sword and Jesus was crowned with thorns. People took to wearing such medals and some of those people enjoyed great blessings. So the medal garnered the reputation of being “miraculous.” But it’s important for us to remember that the actual medal has no particular power of its own. All of our sacramentals have a religious purpose that serves as a reminder of our faith.
June 9, 2024
You don’t tend to see them much anymore, but many of us of a certain age received our own scapular when we made our first Communion. It was most likely a brown scapular, in imitation of one worn by the Carmelites. Originally a scapular was a piece of cloth worn over the shoulders by friars and monks to help protect them from the weather. It became part of their ordinary religious attire.
In the 13th century, lay people who received spiritual direction from a particular religious community would wear something similar to show their connection to that religious order. They would wear a vest of sorts — two pieces of cloth worn on the chest and the back, connected by strings or tape over the shoulders. By the 16th century, it was reduced to a two inch square, worn around the neck and usually under one’s outer clothing as a holy reminder. There are now 18 different scapulars approved by our Church for private devotion.
June 2, 2024
As we continue our series on Catholic practices, let’s consider additional sacramental actions. Our Jewish ancestors in faith followed the traditional practice of an annual Day of Atonement in order for the people to be cleansed from their sins. In the early days of our Catholic Church, people were encouraged to confess their sins to one another and pray for spiritual strength and healing (James 5:16). But as persecutions ramped up, some Christians denied their faith. If they later wanted to rejoin the community, they had to go through a ritual of penance and absolution. Serious sinners were brought to the attention of the public and they had to enter what was called the “order of penitents.” It might have taken them years of extensive penance and proofs of conversion before they would be absolved of their sins and restored to the Christian faith community.
Fortunately for us, the Irish Monks began the practice of private and individual confession to a priest or other confessor. We still follow this model in the way we confess our sins to a priest, carry out our penance and receive absolution. We call this process the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. It’s one of the unique opportunities our Church offers to us for spiritual healing. After all, Jesus was all about healing, forgiveness and the restoration of wholeness.
May 26, 2024
Though the Jewish Psalms were still a part of our early Church liturgy and worship, other hymns which were decidedly Christ-focused were composed, adding to the beauty of later liturgical celebrations. These included the Gloria. By the twelfth century, the Church had composed antiphons in honor of Mary which were sung in Gregorian chant. This chant style was first popularized by Pope Gregory the Great (540-604). And St. Thomas Aquinas himself composed some hymns that we still use in our special liturgies, including the Pange Lingua for the Feast of Corpus Christi.
Other common practices expanded as well throughout the early centuries of Christianity. Water that was blessed at the Easter Vigil became known as “holy water” and could then be used for blessings and sacramental ceremonies. Baptism, as a cleansing with water ceremony, became the common way to gain entry into the Church, typically at the annual Easter Vigil. After Christianity was legalized in the early 4th century, there were mass conversions to the Christian faith. So the only people left to baptize into the Catholic faith were newborns. The majority of baptisms performed in our Church today involve infants, though infant baptism is not a common practice in all modern strands of Christianity.
May 19, 2024
The Roman Empire functioned on a calendar year that had been set by Julius Caesar and was known as the Julian calendar, with each new year beginning on January 1. Early Christians followed the same calendar. But our Church approached time as something sacred and began to designate seasons and feasts throughout the calendar year. For Christians, it was important to recognize and celebrate the events in the life of Jesus that informed their faith. So they celebrated the feast of the Nativity of Jesus in December. Soon Advent became its own distinct liturgical season in preparation for Christmas. And of course Easter was celebrated annually in the Spring. Two days of fasting was a part of that preparation, which eventually extended to an entire Holy Week. And that evolved into a whole season of preparation which we now call Lent.
Church seasons and special events were marked out by various symbolic colors and décor. We still use the color green and growing things to designate Ordinary Time. Purples and blues indicate the penitential seasons of Advent and Lent. Whites and golds permeate the Easter season. Today our Church calendar is filled with special feast days which now follow what is known as the Gregorian calendar, worked out by Pope Gregory XIII in the late 16th century.
May 12, 2024
Early Christian bishops took great pains to come to even greater understanding of who Jesus was so they could spread his teachings and practices according to what they understood to be his intentions and commands. Christian fellowship, prayer and breaking of bread took place primarily in people’s homes. The Mass as we know it began to take shape, as documented by Justin, Martyr in the middle of the second century. But as persecutions became more rampant, the Christian liturgy was often conducted in the confines and secrecy of the underground catacombs. In spite of oppression, the Church spread and grew, and other practices, devotions and prayers became incorporated into the Christian faith because of their association with Jesus.
Things really ramped up once Christianity was legalized by the emperor Constantine in 313 AD. The Church was gifted with Basilicas and property to build churches. Sunday services were expanded to include special vestments, processionals, more Scripture, longer reflections, and additional prayers and music. Symbols of fish, doves and crosses became common as a way of connecting something to the Christian faith. Bells were incorporated into the liturgy to call attention to important actions such as the consecration of the Eucharist. And the Eucharistic liturgies took longer due to the increased numbers of people attending the Masses in larger, public spaces.
May 5, 2024
The early Christians were primarily concerned with spreading the “good news” of Jesus Christ crucified, yet risen from the dead. And spread the word they did! Christian teachings and practices began to permeate all the geographical territories within the Roman Empire. Beginning in Jerusalem, Christianity eventually took hold throughout the ancient Near East, into northern Africa, to Greece and then to Rome and north into Europe, ultimately reaching the far corners of the whole Roman Empire.
As new church communities started up, they needed informed and authoritative leaders to properly teach the faith and model its practices. Just as Jesus needed to designate successors to keep his legacy and authority alive after his death, the original apostles had to do the same. They chose worthy successors, “laid hands” on them to “ordain” or designate them as legitimate leaders, imparting the Holy Spirit to guide their efforts. The new leaders then continued to perpetuate the Christian way. These successors fall into the line of what we call “apostolic succession.” Since the early days of the Church, those successors were called “bishops.” And our bishops today, in apostolic succession, make up the Magisterium, which is the teaching and governing arm of the Catholic Church.
April 28, 2024
As we continue our way through our series on religious beliefs and practices that are decidedly Christian, we’re picking up where we left off last week — with the concept of Trinity. Our Jewish ancestors in faith had no concept of three persons in One God. That idea was revealed to them by Jesus. So it makes sense that some religious traditions arose that were particularly associated with the Trinity. Every time our Christian community gathers to worship, we both begin and end our liturgy with the Sign of the Cross. As we mark our bodies with the shape of a cross, we add the words “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Amen. This — our most basic prayer — acknowledges our belief in a triune God and has been affirmed since the early centuries of Christianity.
Another ancient trinitarian prayer is the doxology, first used in the Eastern Church. This one should also sound familiar. Perhaps you pray it regularly: “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.” Amen. As with all of our prayers, we end them with an “Amen” which declares our belief in what we just professed. It’s good to remind ourselves that every time we sign ourselves, we are proclaiming our consent to the concept of a trinitarian God.
April 21, 2024
The Ascension and Pentecost are reminders of our belief in God as Triune — three Divine Persons in one Godhead. And that is a uniquely Christian concept. Early Christians wrestled with the true identity of Jesus who had spoken of God as his Heavenly Father. He even said he and God were “one” (see John 17:11) which was a baffling prospect for Jews, since they had been taught there is only one God. And Jesus also spoke of sending his followers the Holy Spirit as an advocate, who would help guide and instruct them in his physical absence.
Our early Church Fathers and leaders wrestled for centuries with the concept of Trinity — that God is three persons in one; that the Father was not the Son, who was not the Spirit. Yet Father, Son and Spirit were all the same God. We still wrestle with this great mystery. But we accept that Jesus revealed this to us and that all he revealed was true and given for our benefit. And so we celebrate the concept of our trinitarian God in a feast known as the Solemnity of the Trinity, which falls on the first Sunday after Pentecost.
April 14, 2024
During the Easter season, we will acknowledge some very important events in the life of Jesus. One of those is the feast of the Ascension. Our New Testament Scriptures, which are Christian writings, give us accounts of the disciples witnessing the Risen Lord ascending into heaven (see Mark 16:19 for example). Our Church teaches that Jesus now sits at the right hand of his Heavenly Father, which we acknowledge in both of our Creeds. After fulfilling the mission given to him, the Risen Christ reigns forever from the heavenly realm.
The Christian Scriptures also give us Jesus’ promise to provide the help of his divine Spirit after he is gone (see John 14 and 16). We celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit as our divine guide and ongoing teacher on the day of Pentecost. Our Jewish ancestors in faith celebrated Pentecost 50 days after the Passover in recognition of the giving of the Mosaic Law. But for Christians, Pentecost is the birth of our Church and the gifting of God’s ongoing presence to us. And the feast of Pentecost marks the official end of our 50-day Easter season.
April 7, 2024
As we make our way through the Easter season, we still have three readings at each Mass, but the first reading comes from the Acts of the Apostles. This is a decidedly Christian text which unveils the growth of our Christian Church community. We will encounter Jesus’ disciples taking to the public squares to proclaim all of the events that just took place in Jerusalem with regard to Jesus. They will retell the stories of his prophetic words and teachings, of his fulfillment of the prophecies regarding the long-awaited Messiah, of the miraculous healings he performed, of his sufferings and death and of his resurrection and post- resurrection appearances. And they will proclaim the forgiveness of sins through belief in his name.
Eventually their testimonies would get compiled and written down, put forth in a set of beliefs that we still proclaim communally in what we call the Apostles’ Creed. If we take a good look at the text of that Creed, it is a profession of faith in Jesus Christ — the faith we have come to believe and accept based on the witness of the earliest disciples of Jesus. The Apostles’ Creed is said to contain the 12 primary articles of faith that early Christians professed to believe. As questions about Jesus arose through the subsequent centuries, those articles of faith were expanded and further clarified which resulted in the Nicene Creed. Today, we still profess either the Apostles’ or the Nicene Creed in our liturgies.
March 31, 2024
Happy Easter! And congratulations! You have completed the six weeks of Lenten preparation in anticipation of Easter. Today is the holiest day of our entire liturgical year. Our readings at the Masses this weekend give us the first post-death appearance of Jesus. The most important dogma of our faith is the belief that Jesus rose from the dead. We know this as the Resurrection. At the time Jesus lived, some of the Jews believed in a resurrection of the dead, but others did not. For us Christians, belief in resurrection is not an option. The Resurrection of Jesus was a game changer.
This truly was very “Good News” to the disciples of Jesus. He was alive! He conquered death as he had promised. He was still with them, though not physically. He continued to guide and encourage them so they could continue his mission. So they gathered each Sunday to continue to celebrate Easter as the Lord’s Day. Our Sunday and daily Masses throughout the Easter season will include Scripture accounts of the Risen Christ. So we continue to celebrate. In fact, we will celebrate this Good News of Easter for the next 50 days. A very appropriate response to that is to rejoice and be glad!
March 24, 2024
In our Catholic liturgical calendar, today we acknowledge what we call Palm Sunday. And Palm Sunday is the beginning of our Holy Week, which includes the three holiest days of all. We call those three days the “Triduum” which is a Latin word meaning “three days.” Those three days will culminate in the most important day in our Christian calendar and life — Easter Sunday. But before we get there, we will engage in another uniquely Catholic practice known as the 40 Hours Devotion.
At the end of the Holy Thursday liturgy, the consecrated communion bread is carried in procession with incense and song to a chapel or another designated space for adoration. This will be the Eucharist that we receive on Good Friday, since consecration does not take place that day. The altar is stripped bare and we are asked to leave our worship space in silence. The quiet of the crowd anticipates the death of our Lord. This marks the beginning of 40 hours of prayer, which lasts until the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Then the Blessed Sacrament will be brought forth to be offered in the Holy Saturday Mass, symbolizing the Resurrection of Jesus.
March 17, 2024
The cross of course is the iconic symbol of our Christian faith. Around the time of the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, it became an annual tradition in Jerusalem to offer the cross for the faithful to kiss and venerate. This custom spread throughout the Roman Empire. It was incorporated into the liturgy by the 8th century. While no longer a part of every liturgy, we continue this custom at the Good Friday service during Holy Week in order to show our deep respect and admiration for the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.
It is also fitting that this time of the year as we work our way toward Easter, we incorporate into some of our Masses the reading of the Passion of our Lord. That will be part of the Liturgy of the Word at Mass next weekend for Palm Sunday. And of course that particular passion account will come from Mark’s gospel given that we are in Year B of our liturgical cycle. We will read the Passion account again on Good Friday, but that one always comes from John’s gospel.
March 10, 2024
The earliest Christians, most of whom were Jews, continued to engage in their traditional prayer practices. But later Christianity spawned some new prayer practices. Perhaps you have heard of the Angelus prayer. The word “angelus” in Latin gives us the English word “angel.” Ancient monastics would ring church bells in order to call the monks to prayer at various times during the day, such as 6:00 am, noon and 6:00 pm. The purpose of the Angelus was to honor the Incarnation and Mary’s role in it. The monks often prayed a series of Hail Mary’s, along with a request for her intercession. Some parishes still ring bells throughout the day to remind the faithful to pray.
Another of our unique prayer practices is known as Benediction. Benediction is a ritual that usually concludes some kind of a prayer service. It might involve the use of a consecrated host displayed in a monstrance, accompanied by the singing of hymns. The host might undergo incensing and the congregants who attend are considered to be blessed by the process.
March 3, 2024
Clearly Christianity brought forward the Jewish practice of conferring blessings. We understand blessings as the bestowal of God’s goodness and grace upon a person or a thing. In all four Gospels, Jesus blessed the loaves of bread that then fed thousands — a clear example of God’s gift of abundance, generosity and Self. Jesus also blessed the elements of the bread and wine shared at the Lord’s Supper, which is written in Matthew 26:26-28. So during our Masses, the Eucharistic elements of bread and wine are blessed. But what is unique to our Catholic faith is that those elements are then consecrated.
When we baptize children into the Catholic faith, the Baptismal Rite for Children includes blessings upon the parents of the child to help them form their child in the faith. And some of us might remember attending a Mass in our youth that ended with a blessing of the throat, in honor of St. Blaise, whose feast day was February 3. We approached the altar and two candles were crossed under our throat, accompanied by a prayer invoking the intercession of St. Blaise. And of course, at the end of every Mass, we are asked to bow our heads and receive a blessing as we are sent out into the world, strengthened by the Eucharist, in order to transform the world for the better.
February 25, 2023
Also during Lent, we Christians often undertake a particular devotion that focuses our attention on the suffering and death of Jesus. We refer to this as the Stations of the Cross. Since the beginning of Christianity, pilgrims have made their way to the Holy Land to walk in the footsteps of Jesus on his way to Calvary. But due to persecutions, it was often too dangerous for many people to make that kind of trip. So during the Middle Ages, it became common for Christians in Europe to set up images of Jesus’ journey at outdoor “stations” and to walk and pray at those stations as a substitute pilgrimage.
Each station represented a critical event in Jesus’ passion. The number of stations varied until the 18th century when Pope Clement XII fixed the number at 14. In the mid 1700s, these station replicas were moved indoors. During Lent here at St. Thomas, a communal Stations event is undertaken every Friday evening. We rotate through a variety of station options. These include the traditional 14, as well as a station series focusing on events in Jesus’ life taken from Scripture and a station series that puts a strong focus on matters of social justice, highlighting some of our fellow Catholics who were particularly devoted to matters of justice and peace.
February 18, 2024
Our season of Lent begins on Ash Wednesday each year which we just observed this past week. You likely attended a Mass or a prayer service which included the marking of ashes on your forehead. The ashes remind us that we are dust and to dust we will return (see Genesis 3:19c). Our Church offers us opportunities for special devotions, which some people like to incorporate into the special liturgical seasons such as Lent. One of those devotions is known as First Friday.
First Friday refers to the practice of devoting the first Friday of each month to the Precious Blood and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Friday of course reminds us of Jesus’ sacrifice on the day we call Good Friday. Here at St. Thomas, some parishioners who have attended the morning Mass will then stay in the chapel for additional prayer in front of the Blessed Sacrament, which is displayed via a monstrance throughout the course of the day. This is another way to engage in adoration and appreciation for Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross.
February 11, 2024
On our liturgical calendar, we are quickly approaching the special season of Lent. Our Jewish ancestors in faith observed the Day of Atonement each year in Fall, with fasting, prayer and almsgiving and with a special sacrifice to atone for the sins of the people from throughout the course of the prior year. In our Christian practice, we observe an entire season of penitence for 40 days in the early Spring. Throughout that time, we practice the same spiritual exercises of fasting, prayer and almsgiving. But we are asked to increase our efforts with regard to these practices in preparation for Easter.
Some of the faithful also choose to participate in the Liturgy of the Hours. Since ancient times, prayer services consisting of song, prayer and Scripture were common and occurred four times daily. This is also referred to as the Divine Office and is part of the daily prayer practice of our ordained clergy. But we the lay faithful are also encouraged to participate, especially in the morning and then again in the evening. We can easily access daily prayer books which offer each days morning prayers and reflections, each weekday Mass and each evenings prayers, Scripture readings and hymns.
February 4, 2024
Also included in our Catholic liturgical calendar is a day devoted to all of the saints en masse, which logically is referred to as All Saints Day. We celebrate that day every year on November 1. And that is followed on November 2 by All Souls Day where we recognize all our loved ones, united to us in faith, who have preceded us in death, but who have not or will not warrant the recognition of a canonized saint across the universal Church.
In the Middle Ages, litanies became a popular way to pray by invoking the names of the saints. After addressing a saint by name, we petition that saint to “Pray for us.” Such a litany can include saints known to the universal Church or saints known to a local parish which inserts into the litany the names of their own local or favorite saints. It’s common for us to hear a Litany of Saints during an ordination Mass and at the Easter Vigil for the blessing of the baptismal water. Obviously these are prayer practices particular to Christianity.
January 28, 2024
Once the Christmas season has come to an end, we revert back to Ordinary time in our liturgical calendar. The color green has returned to our worship space which visually designates that we are in Ordinary time. The daily readings at morning Mass might acknowledge some special events in the early life of Jesus, such as his Presentation in the Temple in Jerusalem. But for the most part, we fast-forward to Jesus’ adulthood and begin to read accounts of Jesus’ ministry and teachings. For the remainder of this liturgical year, those accounts will come primarily from Mark’s gospel, which we know as Cycle B.
Also punctuated throughout the whole liturgical year are feast days recognizing the saints who were very important to the unfolding of our faith history. This is another concept unique to Christianity. We Catholics believe in a Communion of Saints. And if you look at a Catholic calendar, you will find a saint of the day almost every day of the year. We recognize those holy men and women who have gone before us as good role models and spiritual mentors. Some of the saints who will be remembered in this short stretch of Ordinary time include St. Anthony, Saints Timothy and Titus, St. Agatha and St. Scholastica.
January 21, 2024
Our official Christmas season recently came to a close after we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Family and the Baptism of Jesus. Another major event within our Christmas season is the Solemnity of the Epiphany. On this feast day, we read from the Gospel of Matthew the account of the visit of the Magi to the Holy Family. The word epiphany means manifestation, in Jesus’ case to some visitors from outside of Israel. Non-Jews known as Gentiles accepted and worshiped the Christ child as the newborn King of the Jews. Epiphany marks our celebration of Christ as a gift of great magnitude to the entire world.
During the Middle Ages, it became customary to bless one’s home with holy water or incense in celebration of the Epiphany. Today we use chalk to write on the top of the door frame of our main door the initials of the Magi (C, M and B), along with a code of the current year, which is all connected by crosses. So for example, at Epiphany of this year, one would write 20+C+M+B+24. In essence we would be asking Christ to bless our house for the upcoming year. And that is the meaning of the Latin application of C, M, B: Christus Mansionem Benedicat — May Christ bless this house.
January 14, 2024
As we all know, our worship space and services are loaded with tangible items and actions that can help us enter into a sense of sacred space and time. We have covered many of these in our prior column series on our Jewish roots. But obviously our space is going to feature holy reminders specific to Christ, such as the chalice and the paten, a crucifix, a songbook with hymns praising the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and a Bible which includes the writings of the New Testament.
Along the way throughout our Christian history, many other physical items have been added to the mix. Perhaps during Advent your home decorations included an Advent Wreath with its 4 candles. Some families use an Advent calendar to count down the days until Christmas. We also have special prayers called the O Antiphons which open morning prayer on the seven days prior to the Vigil of the Nativity. These can be spoken or sung as an expression of the human desire and longing for God. They culminate in the coming of God in the person of the infant Christ on Christmas Day.
January 7, 2024
Prior to the Christmas season, we entered into the special liturgical season of Advent. Advent was our time to watch, to wait and to open ourselves to the expectation that God was at work in the world — specifically with the intention to send his own Son into the world. We believe that person was Jesus Christ — the God Man — both human and divine. In order for Jesus to be truly human, he had to have a human mother. Enter Mother Mary. Mary factored heavily into the Advent season. One of the titles we attribute to her is the Mother of God, given that she birthed the Son of God into our world.
Just this past week, on our liturgical calendar, we celebrated the Solemnity of Mary as the Mother of God. That particular title was officially affirmed by the Church in the fifth century. Mary holds a place of great honor in our Catholic life. We have numerous other annual Marian feast days on our Church calendar as well, including the Annunciation, her Visitation with Elizabeth, her Assumption into heaven and her Immaculate Conception, which we also celebrated during the Advent season.