Catholic Fire

Today, we celebrate a beautiful Marian Feast -- the Queenship of Mary. This special Liturgical Feast was proclaimed by Pope Pius XII on October 11, 1954 through his Encyclical Letter Ad Caeli Reginam . The Catholic Church made this proclamation based upon the fact that whether in time of peace or in time of war, the faithful have incessantly offered prayers of petition and hymns of praise and veneration to the Queen of Heaven. Following the tremendous destruction that occurred during World War II and considering the reality that the threat of a similar catastrophe filled the faithful with a great anguish, the Church turned its eyes towards Mary, the Heavenly Queen, in the hope of her protection. Mary has never failed those who have sought her intercession in prayer, placing their total trust in her. Mary’s queenship has its roots in Scripture. At the Annunciation, Gabriel announced that Mary’s Son would receive the throne of David and rule forever. (Luke 1:32 -33) At the Visi...

(Vatican Radio) A new book was scheduled to be launched in Rome on Wednesday to encourage Catholics to prayerfully read the Bible. Published jointly by the American Bible Society and the Vatican Publishing House (Libreria Editrice Vaticana), “Pray With the Bible, Meditate With the Word” uses the ancient monastic practice of Lectio Divina to help readers draw spiritual help from Scripture. “In the third century monks developed a prayerful practice called Lectio Divina, the reading of God: That meant to read the Bible in a prayerful form.” explained Mario Paredes, the Presidential Liaison of Catholic Ministries for the American Bible Society. “As the centuries went by, prayer…became very rational and very intellectual, and so the act of praying with the World of God became really obsolete until very modern times. After Vatican II, the Church clearly indicated that a Catholic person should be engaged with the Word of God.” He told Vatican Radio that the American Bible Society has co...

This video is done as a decade of the rosary. Ten statements, each to help you meditate on the mystery of Mary and Joseph finding Jesus in the temple after losing Him. Jesus tries to explain that God the Father is His Father. ~ Via Steve Silvia.

We were recently treated to the remark by Barack Obama that the question of when a baby receives human rights was beyond his pay grade. At the public forum at Saddleback Church, he said: “… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.” That, of course, is exactly what the Supreme Court said in Roe vs. Wade, the decision that legalized abortion in American throughout all nine months of pregnancy. Faced with a question it found too uncomfortable, the majority said the following: “We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer” [410 U.S. 113, 159]. So what are we to think of those who speak this way? Is it vice or virtu...

SCRIPTURE: "Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. The angel of the Lord encamps all around those who fear Him, and delivers them." -- Psalm 34: 3-4, 7 REFLECTION: Fear of what man may do to us, or fear of what the future may hold, keeps many in bondage to the lies of the enemy. A young woman may fear her boyfriend won't love her if she doesn't engage in promiscuity. The young woman who has an unplanned pregnancy may fear what the future holds because she has believed the lie that her life and her future are over because of the child in her womb. The post-abortive woman may fear she is unworthy of love and deserves to be punished by both God and man. We may fear what people think or what man may do to us because we stand for righteousness, and stand in the gap for the unborn and the woman with child. But Scripture tells us to fear the Lord! In fact, the theme of the book...

1. Testimony of the texts. Scripture, Tradition and the Church thereafter all agree that Christ rose. 2. Testimony of the Twelve. Cowardly apostles fleeing became courageous Christians preaching, and they unanimously said it was because they saw Christ alive. 3. Transformation of Saul. St. Paul went from persecutor to believer after seeing Christ alive. 4. No early Church debate. The early Church debated many fundamental things, but not the Resurrection. 5. Centuries of martyrs. Christians, from the Church’s first days to our own day, have been willing to die for their conviction that Christ rose from the dead. 6. Diverse sources. Gospel writers included different details, and material from different sources — all of which agreed on the fact of the Resurrection. 7. Eyewitnesses. St. Paul spoke of how Christ appeared, alive, to 500 at once — and he was writing not long after the event occurred. 8. Non-Christian historical accounts. Tacitus and Josephus mention Christ — and describe how ...