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 ...