Author name: Molly Hostetler

“Even the saints are tainted by daily sins,” Augustine tells us. “The whole Church cries: ‘Forgive us our sins!’ She is, therefore, blemished and wrinkled (Eph. 5:27). But through contrition these blemishes are removed, these wrinkles smoothed away. The Church’s unceasing prayer is one of contrition that she may be made pure. And so it will remain until the end of time.”

Because the content of the Church’s catechesis is rooted in her life of worship, that being the time and place where Catholics ordinarily encounter the mysteries of Christ, celebrations of liturgy ought especially to evoke a sense of wonder. What other event on planet Earth can equal the marvels of the Catholic Mass? It is, simply put, God’s greatest, most powerful act of self-giving love the world has ever seen.

Years ago Joni Oeltjenbruns wrote a lift-the-flap book called Where is God? In the story, a baby searches for God in his house. Is God behind the door? Under the bed? On the last page, the answer is revealed: God is inside you and me, with the flap revealing a heart and a cross.

St. Augustine’s theology of the Eucharist stresses its proper effect, which is the unity of the Mystical Body. It has this effect of binding together the Mystical Body of Christ precisely because the members of the Church receive the real Body and Blood of Christ. In other words, the charity that binds the Church together is the proper effect of receiving the Body and Blood of Christ.

A few months back, in the deep, dark, frozen recesses of January, a friend showed up at my door with two crates of blackberries in hand. Apparently, he’d already dispensed about a dozen more elsewhere. If you’d asked me before that January day if said friend had mafia connections, I would have unhesitatingly answered, “No!” Now, I’m not so sure—mostly because his explanation as to where the blackberries came from amounted to, “They fell off of a truck.”

In The Bible and the Virgin Mary, Matthew Leonard explains key Marian dogmas in light of Scripture and Church teaching. On the feast of Mary’s Queenship, learn more about how the Old and New Testaments illuminate Mary’s role as mother and queen.

Histories of St. Louis’s rule have tended to be dependent on the narrative of the secular State and normally follow this pattern. In the thirteenth century, France gained territorial integrity. This newly expanded kingdom was increasingly governed by the central authority. The king worked to monopolize violence, bringing more and more “feudal” activities under his purview. To this end, Louis outlawed private war and the duel.