Church of the Madalene

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Do Catholics—or mainstream Protestant denominations for that matter—believe in the “second” second coming as popularized by the Left Behind book series and supported by many fundamentalist churches and Christians? No way. This popularized belief states that “true Christians” will be secretly and invisibly whisked away in order to be spared the great tribulation, as described [...]

Portions adapted from A. van den Born’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Bible, Second Revised Edition There has been a lot of talk in the popular media lately about the family of Jesus Christ, particularly about his “brother” James. A few years ago a book boldly titled “The Brother of Jesus” claimed to have found a [...]

The Mass is what we do, but not for the reason we might think. It’s easy to assume that it’s called Mass because that’s what we do—we mass together. Actually it’s called Mass because of what we do afterwards, we go forth. The term Mass is from the Latin phrase that used to be stated [...]

We can have the surf but not the turf on Ash Wednesday and Fridays during lent. Okay. Why? I believe it was St. Jerome who said that ignorance of the scriptures is ignorance of Christ. I’m going to be so bold as to add to that by saying ignorance of our Catholic faith is ignorance [...]

Giving something up during Lent can take us in 1 of 2 directions. It can eliminate the desire for what we have sacrificed, making more room for God. Or, it can create a stronger desire for what we gave up so that when we return to it, we appreciate it all the more and thank [...]

Even though Lent comes every year, we aren’t always ready for it. We don’t plan months, even weeks in advance for this season, as we do Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. Even Independence Day carries with it some needed preparation. In fact, Ash Wednesday sometimes catches us off our guard. This year let’s make Ash Wednesday [...]

Falling squarely under the category of, “Why do Catholics do that?” is making the Sign of the Cross. It’s almost as ancient as Christianity itself, it originated in the second century with Christians using just the thumb to cross ones forehead. (Sound familiar? We continue this gesture to this day just before the reading of [...]

One of my fiancée Beth’s favorite Christmas time traditions is The Peanuts Christmas Special, and her favorite part is the speech that Linus gives after Charlie Brown yells out in exasperation, “Isn’t there anyone who knows what Christmas is all about!” What not too many people know is that Linus’s speech is actually a quote [...]

The very name, Christmas, should clue us in to the fact that this is a Catholic holiday; Christmas is a contraction of the Middle English Christemasse or Christ’s Mass.1 Christmas owes its particular date to the Sol Invictus, the Winter Solstice festival of ancient Rome when Rome celebrated the “unconquered” sun as it victoriously emerged [...]