Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ becomes alive and visits us, touches us, and enters us through His Mystical Body, the Church! In the most full sense of the word, Jesus becomes alive in us through the Eucharist. All the actions of the Church and the members of the Mystical Body of Christ converge at the source and summit of the Church in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Before ascending into Heaven, Jesus promised His Presence among us with these words: “Go out to all nations and teach them all that I taught you; baptize them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Behold, I a ..read more

Every Sunday at Mass, we confess that Jesus died and rose again “in accordance with the Scriptures,” and most of us understand this to mean that the Old Testament prophesied Jesus’ death and resurrection. That is true, as various Israelite prophets did foretell Jesus’ saving acts from Good Friday to Easter Sunday, but that is not all they prophesied. They didn’t just say what would happen. One of them also told us when this salvation would come. I’m talking about the prophet Daniel. His book recounts his experiences while exiled in Babylon, and during his time there, he received prophetic vis ..read more

Chapters 12-23 of the book of the prophet Isaiah have a lot of heavy material. There are many oracles against foreign nations. This can show an effort by the author to bolster Israel’s national spirit. At the same time, there is mention of Israel’s restoration. A message of hope shines through. To read through and meditate these chapters, it is good to focus on the Song of Thanksgiving in chapter 12, which precedes the series of oracles against the nations. Song of Thanksgiving, Chapter 12 Dealing with anger The prophet speaks of his thanks to the Lord, even though the Lord has been angry wi ..read more

Plagues have a way of stripping away what is superfluous, revealing the naked truth. In the biblical account of the plagues that decimated Egypt, the plagues exposed the civilization’s false gods and their utter impotence in the face of the one true God (see Exodus 7 through 11). That might not be obvious from the text. On the surface, it seems like a clash between pharaoh and Moses, who has God on his side. The clue is in the plagues themselves. Bloody water, boils, hail, and locusts, among others, may seem like the perfect things to inflict as plagues. But biblical commentators point out th ..read more

“The Eucharist is the loom on which the threads of the remaining sacraments are woven into the tapestry of salvation.” And though a single thread of God’s sacramental grace has the instrumental power to incorporate a soul into the Body of Christ, it is lamentable to forego the orchestral truth conveyed by all the sacraments woven in concert throughout the fabric of a human life. The saints give witness to the holy beauty that radiates from the fullness of the Faith lived out through the embrace of the sacramental life completed by the Blessed Sacrament. The Eucharist is the source and summit ..read more

Some think Lent is a time for fasting.  I see it as a time of feasting. I come to this conclusion based on the story of the fig tree in Luke 13.  Three years without bearing fruit.  What could be the problem?  The owner figures that it is simply a dud and wants to cut it down.  The vinedresser, a little more in touch with nature, comes to a different conclusion.   Maybe all that is needed to turn things around is a bit of fertilizer. As we look at Christians in America, we have to be honest.  A full 82% of us say we are Christians.  So where’s the ..read more

Some of us remember fantasy role-play through 1980s board games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Today fantasy role-playing is a market worth a billion dollars, if much of it online. Into this world comes a Catholic fantasy role-playing game: The Road to Bethlehem. It has all the usual elements typical of such creations but with one major difference — or, maybe expressed more correctly, with an added dimension. The characters at play are not fantasy figures but are real, historical figures. Also, the character one inhabits at the game’s start is not some fictional construct but ..read more

My preschool aged daughter has a beloved stuffed tiger, named “Tiger.” Tiger goes with her to all sorts of places – the library, our homeschool co-op, the seminary where her dad teaches, and any Mass he can sneak into. Tiger has a lot of attitude. I insist that he be put in her backpack sometimes, but Tiger doesn’t like that. At one point I had him zippered into a backpack beside me in the front seat of the car, and I could hear him saying as I drove (in a voice that sounded very similar to the voice of his little four-year-old mama’s), “What?? I can’t breathe! What??” Recently, Tiger accompa ..read more

Dear Father Kerper: Last April, I heard that the Church had abolished Limbo. Years ago, my grandmother told me that non-baptized babies go to Limbo instead of Heaven because of original sin. Now I hear that Limbo was just an opinion, not a Church teaching. How can I know what’s really true and what’s just opinion? Thank you for your note of interest in this subject, which reflects your honest concern for the salvation of all of God’s children. Yet I also realize that your question reflects the reality that some of us get very frustrated when ideas and practices suddenly change. In order t ..read more

Since the ninth century the rock cliffs of Metéora have towered, practically inaccessible, high above the plains of Thessaly, Greece. In order to escape the tumult of the world, intrepid monks have ascended the forbidding natural formations, resorting to a combination of folding ladders, ropes, baskets, and nets. Hundreds of years passing, they built and inhabited up to 24 monasteries. Only six remain today. Early last century, steps were cut into the rock and the government, after the Second World War, constructed roads all the way up to the very perimeter of the remaining monasteries. St. St ..read more