The New Evangelization and Canon Law
The new evangelization means teaching the faith, celebrating the faith in the Sacraments and in their extension through prayer and devotion, and living the faith through the practice of the virtues, as if for the first time, that is, with the engagement and energy of the first disciples, of the first apostles to our native place. [...]
Beauty in the Sacred Liturgy, According to the Teaching of Pope Benedict XVI
In the Catholic tradition, beauty is a metaphysical and ultimately theological notion. The search of beauty has nothing to do with mere aesthetic sensibility or a flight from reason, because, from the divine perspective, beauty, together with truth and goodness, is a manifestation of being. God, the origin and sustainer of all being is truth, beauty and goodness itself. [...]
Homily – First Sunday of Lent
At the beginning of the Lenten Season, the Church proclaims to us the inspired words of Saint Paul: “Behold, now is the acceptable time, behold now is the day of salvation.”[1] Saint Paul exhorts us not to render vain the gift of God’s grace given to us through the Sacrament of Baptism, strengthened and increased in us through the Sacrament of Confirmation, nourished by the heavenly food of Christ’s Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity through the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist, and restored in us through the Sacrament of Penance. [...]
Homily – Saturday After Ash Wednesday
It is a source of deepest joy for me to celebrate the Holy Mass for so many members of the faithful in this important and historic church of the Archdiocese of Sydney. I am deeply grateful to His Eminence Cardinal George Pell for his warm welcome to the Archdiocese and to all who have worked so diligently in making the arrangements for today’s Solemn Pontifical Liturgy. [...]
The Fall of the Christian West
Pope Benedict XVI, in his 2010 Christmas Address to the College of Cardinals, the Roman Curia and the Governorate of Vatican City State, spoke clearly and strongly about the profoundly disordered moral state in which our world finds itself, today. He spoke about the grave evils of our time, for example, the sexual abuse of minors by the clergy, the marketing of child pornography, sexual tourism, and the deadly abuse of drugs. [...]
Interfaith Group Urges Speaker of the House to Defend DOMA Legislation in Court
Administration’s decision to abandon DOMA was ‘lapse in judgment’ House must join litigation fully to ‘defend true meaning of marriage’ WASHINGTON (March 4, 2011)-Leaders of Catholic, Protestant and Sikh communities of faith-together representing tens of millions of adherents-joined together to urge the U.S. House of Representatives to fight for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) [...]
Homily – Northwest Catholic Men’s Conference
Today’s readings teach us the great Mystery of Faith, witnessed in the Eucharistic Sacrifice in which we now take part. God the Son has taken our human flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. God Himself has taken a human heart under Mary’s Immaculate Heart, in order that He might suffer and die for our salvation, in order that He might receive our hearts into His glorious Heart, His Heart which was pierced as He died for us on the Cross. [...]
Homily – Northwest Catholic Men’s Conference
The theme, Go West Catholic Men, evokes those who braved many hardships and worked hard, over the long haul, to reach this treasured portion of God’s vineyard and to make here a good place in which to live and work. But it also evokes the many challenges which were theirs in living their faith with integrity and thus making this naturally beautiful territory supernaturally beautiful, that is, holy, a land whose inhabitants are devoted to knowing, loving and serving our Lord. [...]
Homily – Fifth Sunday of the Year
Our Lord teaches us today that we are, by virtue of our life in Him, “the salt of the earth,” and “the light of the world.” His teaching, which is part of the Sermon on the Mount, comes immediately after the proclamation of the Beatitudes and is followed by the exhortation to obey the divine law which Our Lord has come into the world to bring to fulfillment by His Passion, Death and Resurrection. [...]
Homily – Patronal Feast of Saint Agatha
On February 5th in the year 251, Saint Agatha, a young Christian virgin of Catania, gave her life in faithful and enduring love of her Divine Spouse, Our Lord Jesus Christ. Called into trial by the Roman Emperor Decius because of her profession of the Catholic faith, she, together with many young Christians of Sicily, resisted the pressure to apostasy. She gave the supreme witness, suffering a cruel passion and death [...]
St. Gianna
Rev. John A. Hardon, SJ 