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If you or someone you know is interested in becoming Catholic, he should seek out a nearby Catholic parish and inquire about its RCIA program. RCIA stands for “the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults” and has always been present, in some form, since the beginning of Church history. Acts 8:26-40 describes how the apostle Philip taught a servant of the Ethiopian queen about Jesus before he baptized him. In the second century, St. Justin Martyr described the process of being received into the C …

One constructive approach would be to enter more fully into the celebrations ourselves and, by our example, invite secularists to consider the sacred meaning of the Christian seasons they celebrate without reference to Christ, reminding them that he is the reason for the seasons. Let’s look at Christmas as an example. Christmas is the most publicly celebrated Christian holiday in the United States. Christians, non-Christians, and secularists alike observe the day in some way—if only as a federal …

Among others we could consider, we will examine three reasons why Mary was and continues to be both a virgin and mother. In Luke 1:34, when Mary was told by the angel Gabriel that she was chosen to be the mother of the Messiah, she asked the question, literally translated from the Greek, “How shall this be, since I know not man?” This question makes no sense unless Mary had professed a vow of virginity. When we consider that Mary and Joseph were already “espoused,” according to verse 27 of this …

God did not reveal his plan of the ages all at once. As the centuries rolled on, he sent prophets to his people Israel, and they learned more about the shape of his plan. This is a concept that scholars refer to as progressive revelation, because the revelation happened in stages. Jesus also taught his disciples progressively, during the years he spent with them. Very quickly, they realized he was the Messiah (John 1:41), but they did not initially understand that his kingdom was “not of this wo …

There were actually two apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe more than two centuries apart. In 1326 in Cácerces, Spain, according to legend, the Virgin Mary appeared to a cowherd named Gil Cordero as he searched for a lost cow. The Virgin led him to a mound of stones where he saw his cow lying motionless as if dead. Cordero was preparing to cut off its hide when it awoke. Mary told him to dig at the spot. Skeptical at first, local authorities dug to remove the stones and found a cave that conta …