Author name: Molly Hostetler

Lent is the season for turning away from sin and living a life more conformed to the will and plan of God. Penitential practices are a means to that end. Like diet and exercise for the athlete, prayer, mortification, and almsgiving are ways for the Catholic to grow in faith and get closer to Jesus.  

It took the Church nearly 1,500 years (in 1481) to establish a liturgical feast for St. Joseph and nearly 1,900 years (in 1889) to publish the first encyclical about him. This encyclical came just after he was officially raised up to a great status in devotion by Bl. Pius IX, who officially declared him the protector of the universal Church in 1870. Every subsequent pope has published a significant teaching on St. Joseph, and many of them have inscribed that teaching in the official liturgical practice of the Roman Rite.

Every year in Lent the Church directs our thoughts to Jesus on the Cross. This is the sacred center of everything we believe and celebrate as Catholic Christians. Take away the Cross and you take away our salvation. Take away our salvation and everything “good” about the good news of the gospel evaporates.

As a zealous Evangelical high schooler, Scott Hahn would challenge his Catholic classmates with this question: “Where in the New Testament do you find the sacrifice of the Mass?” Not having a clear understanding of Scripture, his classmates could not refute Scott’s question and some became convinced that their Catholic faith had no biblical foundations.  

Let’s discuss the idea of calling priests “father.” In Matthew 23:9, when Jesus says, “And call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven,” does Jesus mean that literally or is he just driving home a point using strong terminology? I would say it’s the latter. Catholics are criticized for this because Catholics call priests “father.”  

Ash Wednesday is the start of forty days in which we are called to grow closer to Jesus with focused effort. The Church guides us through the Season of Lent, and our path is marked with prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We pray, fast, and give all the time, but we try to increase the quality and quantity during Lent.

We’re less than a week away from the debut of our newest video study, Parousia: The Bible and the Mass.