2020

The act of Christian faith has an essentially tangible character that constitutes perhaps the most serious challenge for those who take the leap of faith: to believe “that the fate of all history, our fate, depends on one individual: Jesus of Nazareth.” 

When Origen wrote his introduction to the book Against Celsus, he drew a picture no apologist can afford to forget. He described our Lord standing alone and silent before His accusers in the judgment hall. Shrill voices bore discordant charges against Him, and He would not speak in His own defense. The great Alexandrian made it very clear that the silence of Jesus was freighted with meaning. The important thing there in that courtroom was Jesus Himself. The men who surged about Him knew well what He had said and what He had done. The Saviour wished them to consider only that.  

The dogma of the Assumption teaches that at the end of her time on earth, Mary was taken up—body and soul—into heaven. There, she sits at her Son’s right hand, as Queen of Heaven and Earth. The foundation for the teaching is rooted in Scripture, specifically in John’s mysterious and apocalyptic vision recorded in Revelation 12. 

Some people like movies about puppies. Or horses. Or cars. Me? I like movies about food. Which is why I went poste-haste to Pranzo Di Ferragosto (literally “Mid-August Lunch”) when it came to Pittsburgh a few years back.

In considering the question of the validity of faith for modern man, we need to understand modernity’s approach to faith in the context of modernity’s broader approach to reality. For modernity, faith is considered a type of knowledge that fails to meet the fundamental criterion that validates all knowing: that which we can perceive with our senses. But to arrive at this point, Joseph Ratzinger explains, modernity has gone through two profound spiritual and cultural stages.  

It should be self-evident that Christ is the center of Christian living. After all, there is no salvation in any one else (Acts 4:12), and at the heart of the Gospel is the clarion call to follow Jesus, to become His disciples (Luke 9:23).  

Pope John Paul II said, “Down through the centuries and generations it has been seen that in suffering there is concealed a particular power that draws a person interiorly close to Christ, a special grace.”  

Many people wonder why they have to go to Church every Sunday when so many Catholics and non-Catholics have decided not to. Let’s set aside the question of whether we are currently able to attend and instead look to the future, for when we are again able to freely worship with no restrictions. Why should Catholics go back to Mass?

Despite a pandemic—perhaps more importantly, because of the spiritual difficulties of this pandemic—we have again hosted our annual Priest Conference East. Thanks to the generous help from donors, from those praying for us, and from those working with us at Oglebay, we were exceedingly happy to host over 100 priests this year.