PRAYER BEFORE THE MARITAL ACT (aka, SEX) Father, send your Holy Spirit into our hearts. Place within us love that truly gives, tenderness that truly unites, self-offering that tells the truth and does not deceive, forgiveness that truly receives, loving physical union that welcomes. Open our hearts to you, to each other and to the goodness of your will. Cover our poverty in the richness of your mercy and forgiveness. Clothe us in our true dignity and take to yourself our shared aspirations, for your glory, for ever and ever. Mary, our Mother, intercede for us. Amen.

“ F ive years ago, I would have been afraid of saying anything like what the pope said in his [recent] interview,”  the Rev. Tom Reese told Sally Quin . “I’m ecstatic. I haven’t been this hopeful about the church in decades....”  “It’s fun to be a religion reporter again. For a while it felt like being on the crime beat. It’s fun to be Catholic again.”  George Weigel has raised  the question of whether or not Fr. Tom has been paying attention throughout the last quarter of the 20th century and the first decade of the 21st. Among his findings on the legacies of Pope Francis' predecessors: Fr. Thomas Reese, S.J. millions of adults have been baptized as or entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. new forms of campus ministry in the mold of JPII's "New Evangelization" have developed across the United States.  Catholic-studies programs have bloomed on genuinely Catholic campuses across the U.S.   the Church has produced the most c...

     -from  The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God: ….In effect, a “rival magisterium” of theologians and religious education experts had arisen, taking upon itself the authority to say what Catholic teaching was and was not after Vatican II. Paul VI noted this, alarmed at the apostasy of these neomodemists in not believing the fullness of Catholic teaching handed down from the Apostles and interpreted for the faithful by the Vicar of Christ in union with the successors of the Apostles. The Pope’s alarm was evident in his call for the Church to observe a “year of faith” in honor of Sts. Peter and Paul: We wish to address a special exhortation to those engaged in the study of Sacred Scripture and theology, to collaborate with the hierarchical teaching authority of the Church in defending the true faith from all error and in sounding its unfathomable depths, in correctly expounding its content and in drawing up reasoned norms for its study and spread. This sa...

F ast approaching are the three minor Rogation Days (the Major Rogation fell on April 25) held on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday immediately before Ascension Thursday. Like the Ember Days, these are days set aside to observe a change in the seasons. Rogation Days are tied to the spring planting. As the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, Rogation Days are "Days of prayer, and formerly also of fasting, instituted by the Church to appease God's anger at man's transgressions, to ask protection in calamities, and to obtain a good and bountiful harvest." Rogation  is simply an English form of the Latin  rogatio , which comes from the verb  rogare , which means "to ask." The primary purpose of the Rogation Days is to ask God to bless the fields and the parish (the geographic area) that they fall in. The Major Rogation likely replaced the Roman feast of Robigalia , on which (the Catholic Encyclopedia notes) "the heathens held processions and supplica...

Awhile back I posted on the attempt at holding a Black Mass on the campus of Harvard.   Harvard's Memorial Hall This reflection on the event by Timothy George in First Things caught my eye: ....on a balmy Monday evening in May, two events took place near Harvard Square—both involving the Devil. A group of Satan-devotees and their friends assembled in a Chinese restaurant for a little diablerie along with their egg rolls and lo mein. A few yards away, at St. Paul Church, more than 1500 people turned out for a holy hour in order to pray, as one of the organizers of the event said, “for those who seek to persecute the Church and a university that has allowed it.” One of those in attendance at the Eucharistic holy hour at St. Paul Church was President Faust. She was there, she said, “in order to join others in reaffirming our respect for the Catholic faith at Harvard.” Meanwhile, at the Vatican, Pope Francis was hosting a conference on exorcism. “The Devil is present!” he said....

Whenever I refer to sexual intercourse in teaching my classes, I refer to it as “the marital act,” largely because sex is unitive and marriageis about union . Truth about human sexuality sees that its unitive nature completes husband and wife as persons, as couples and as a people. Likewise, to live it incompletely renders us incomplete and divided. My review of   Humanae Vitae   centered on the reality that sexual intercourse between husband and wife is both unitive and procreative. In my experience what Catholics and others fail to understand is that in recognizing the unitive nature of sex as different from its procreative nature , Humanae Vitae   did not separate the two . The Holy Father wrote that the traditional doctrine taught within it “… is based on the inseparable connection … between the unitive significance and the procreative significance which are both inherent to the marriage act”. As outlined in TheSmoke of Satan , dissenters from Humanae , lay...

S ome time ago I read Joan Wester Anderson’s thrilling collection of stories attesting to angelic intervention in human affairs. If you do not believe in angels, check out these true stories of angelic intervention . This exhilarating book offers overwhelming evidence that heavenly beings are very much with us -- combating evil, bringing news, warning of danger, consoling us in our suffering. The flip-side of these spiritual faculties, as readers of these pages can attest, is the existence of a dark kingdom, using the same intelligence and power to prevent the spread of God’s kingdom, get more recruits, and consolidate the powers of evil in the world. In Luke 4:7, Satan declares that power over the kingdoms of the world have been delivered to him, and he offers Jesus a share in this power, if only Jesus would worship him; As we hear in the Lenten reading, Jesus avoids the temptation, but does   not   contradict Satan’s claim of power. With some restrictions, the power is ...

Blogging as I do on the Catholic Church's teaching on the truth about human sexuality, I stumbled upon this   article by Joseph Prever ,  one of the best-known gay Catholic bloggers,  who believes totally in the Church’s teachings and who has therefore chosen to live celibately.   He   blogs  about issues of faith, sexuality, and mental health at gaycatholic.com under the semi-pseudonym of Steve Gershom. While we are on the topic, there is a   new film   out that has sparked lively discussion!

A 1997 survey of beliefs about Satan revealed that 69 percent of Catholics believe that “Satan is only a symbol of evil;” only 26% believing that “Satan is a living being.” My, how times have times have changed. Pope Paul VI, soon to be beatified, instructs us that the former position is “a departure from the picture provided by biblical Church teaching.,” one little “crack in the wall” through which the smoke of Satan could enter the Body of Christ. Priests, catechists and religious who take the Devil lightly are indeed the easiest target for what St. Paul termed “the mystery of iniquity.” What the Sisters of Notre Dame De Namur taught me regarding the reality of the Devil prior to Vatican II proved no different from what the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us today: The doctrine of original sin, closely connected with that of redemption by Christ, provides lucid discernment of man's situation and activity in the world. By our first parents' sin, the devil h...

My reading of Pope Francis is that his vision of the world is one of a cosmic battle, with the devil as the great adversary . He speaks of the Devil often.  In addition, the Pope refers often to his aversion to the advent of self-proclaimed families without " the masculinity and femininity of a father and a mother ."   He is inflexible in calling abortion an " abominable crime ."   What to make of this? Simple.  The holy Father is correctly reading the winds of the Catholic Church.

The following was received by a priest from a parishioner: Dear Father: I write to you in an anonymous fashion because if I were to tell you who I am, I would be ashamed to come to the confessional, to Mass, to the place where I am gratefully being nourished. I thank you for the wonderful priest you are and for the pastoring you provide to all of us.  Anonymously in your pews are women holding families together against the destructive forces of pornography on our husbands and sons. We are hurting and ashamed, tolerating – not enjoying – marriages and dealing with our inadequacies and depression. Personally, I feel like the 15 years of my marriage before my discovery were one big lie; that I have been “duped” by an otherwise faithful, church-involved, Knights of Columbus husband. In the three years since my awareness was heightened, I have come to believe that an affair would have actually been easier to tolerate; for perhaps I could compete with flesh and bones, but not with t...

When listening to a talk by Fr. Benedict Groeschel some summers ago, he once told a joke on the end times: "In Brooklyn, when we see people carrying around signs that say the end is near, we say, 'Could ya hurry it up a little?'" What about the end of the world? Will trumpets blow from the four corners of the earth, etc.? Emmett O'Reagan has written a superb piece on what Catholics believe on the end of the world, a tough and often controversial topic, to say the least!

House Concurrent Resolution, HCR 0011, approved Common Core as the standards for Michigan math & English, last fall.  How is the Core faring in other States? I have read that a N ewburgh New York school district pulled a ninth grade book considered by teachers to be “pornographic.”  An Arizona mother launched an storm of protest that forced Arizona schools to pull an eleventh grade book portraying teens in a sado-masochistic relationship.  A Catholic school administrator admitted there were two first grade books about families— The Family Book and   Who’s in a Family —that included pictures of homosexual pairs—listed on the Common Core Catholic Identity Initiative website. The books were removed from the website after parental protest. Perusing the anti -Common Core social media reveals that across the U.S., in public and Catholic schools, parents and teachers have found sexually inappropriate materials in the examples recommended by Common Core State St...

One wonders what the Divinity school at our "most prestigious university"  makes of this recent development . Hats off to the Telegraph for coverage of the Church's training of her exorcists. Sign petition to stop here .

Having worked for the Church for my entire adult life, I have encountered many women whose stories have proven that abortion hurts women, not only the ones denied life, but those who, for whatever reason, choose to end life. Here are some given in response to yesterday's post on Emily, for whom I now pray. Please watch this....

You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.                                                                                                                                                                                              -John 8:44

As one who has suffered from Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Panic disorder, this article pretty much on the mark. The descriptions here are pretty accurate. Luckily my debilitation became so bad that I developed depressive symptoms, and my Dr. prescribed an SSRI used to treat BOTH depression and Generalized Anxiety Disorder as well as Panic Disorder . (Paroxetine). The sourcee of my trouble clearly was related to neurotransmitters, and was cleared up with a proper dosage of the SSRI. Also, while waiting the 6 weeks for the dosage to take effect, I read a book on CBT , whi ch also helped tremendously. So, if any of the 40 million who also suffer from this stumble upon this, I hope this helps!

Good Shepherd Sunday is the Second Sunday of Easter in the Traditional Catholic liturgical calendar (the Sunday after "Low Week," the week beginning with Quasimodo or "Low" Sunday).  The name derives from the gospel readings on this day which are taken from the 10th chapter of John. In this reading Christ is described as the Good Shepherd who, by dying on the Cross, lays down his life for his sheep. A major new Tridentine Mass site originated in metro Detroit on  this day!: The Oakland County Latin Mass Association began  its long-anticipated weekly Sunday Mass at 9:45 AM  at the Chapel of the Academy of the Sacred Heart in Bloomfield  Hills, Michigan. Archbishop Vigneron Has appointed Rev. Msgr. Ronald Browne as chaplain.  High Altar, Academy of the Sacred Heart

As one who has studied ecclesiastical history, I have learned never to get bent out of shape when reading about papal "do's and don'ts" offered by Catholics in print and social media. The gates of hell shall not prevail against the body of Christ. The victory has been won, though I admit it is possible that some of the flock may stray when they understand not what he does....

When researching my book I read an account of how the feminist movement affected the Catholic Church by a then-Anglican, Dr. William Oddie, and remember thinking to myself, " I wonder how long it will be before this gentleman becomes Catholic?" It didn't take as long as I expected. Now Dr. Oddie has written a prescient article for Crisis on the recent canonizations, which appears below. I am posting this merely to offer my take in red on the edifying analysis: John Paul II Set the Barque Back on Course by  Dr. William Oddie Why was Pope John Paul canonized this past Sunday  not alone but together with Pope John? There is a very good answer to this question: but it is not the one generally being touted by the liberal press, Catholic or secular. Here, for instance, is the often sensible John L Allen, writing in the  National Catholic Reporter : “With the canonizations,” he writes, “Francis is speaking not ...