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Rising Like Incense to Heaven
In the weeks leading up to my reception into the Catholic Church, I prepared to not only to be baptized, but also to be confirmed. The sacrament of baptism uses water to communicate grace that takes away sin, while the sacrament of confirmation uses hands that spread oil across the forehead. This oil seals the person with the gifts of the Holy Spirit to help him live out the Catholic faith. Hebrews 6:2 alludes to this sacrament when it says how, after baptism, we receive “the laying on of hands.
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Dec 12th 2023
How Do Our Good Works and Prayers Benefit the Souls in Purgatory?
One mode is by way of intercessory prayer. Just as I can request that God help you grow in holiness in this life, by giving you graces to repent of your venial sins, to reorder your will toward him, and to inspire you to perform penitential actions to discharge your debt of temporal punishment, I can request that God help you in the next by bringing your final purification in purgatory to completion. The basis for this intercessory prayer, whether you’re here on earth or in purgatory, is the bon
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Nov 20th 2020
If We Reject God, We Will Never Truly Understand Ourselves
People lament that there is no longer a Christendom, but, you know, Christendom wasn’t exactly heaven on Earth. The Church doesn’t have worldly power any longer, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.So it has to be nuanced, this idea that we’re living in a post-Christian world that’s so much worse than it was in the past. In some ways, we’re more similar to Christians living in the Roman Empire of the first century than to those in other eras throughout the centuries. It’s almost like we’re
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Oct 14th 2020
Does The Bible Condemn Repetitious Prayer?
The rosary is a popular Catholic devotion that the Catechism endorses as a “form of piety” that expresses the “religious sense of the Christian people” (1674). But for many Protestants, the rosary, with its repetition of the Hail Mary prayer, contradicts Jesus’ command to “Use no vain repetitions as the heathens do” (Matt. 6:7; KJV). It would seem that the Catholic practice of praying the rosary is a direct violation of Jesus’ command.MEETING THE CHALLENGE1. Jesus wasn’t condemning prayers that
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Oct 24th 2019
Ten Aids to Mental Prayer
Ten Aids to Mental
PrayerMental prayer is a furnace, in
which the watch fires of vigilance are constantly rekindled. Fidelity to mental
prayer gives life to all our other pious exercises. By it, the soul will
gradually acquire vigilance and a spirit of prayer—that is, a habit of ever
more frequent recourse to God. Union with God in mental prayer will lead to
intimate union with him, even in the midst of our most absorbing occupations.The soul, thus living in union with
God, by custody of
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Jan 31st 2019