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Columns

Men who ask for directions

By Soren Johnson
As I paid for two bags of groceries at my Safeway the other day, the cashier looked up and asked, “Do you need help getting these to your car?” I was speechless. A few seconds passed before I stammered, along with a forced smile, “No thanks, I’ll be fine.” It’s a truism that “real men” […]
2/9/15
Reading Time 4 min

How to handle Communion accidents

By Fr. William Saunders
Q: I am a little confused over what happens when a priest (or lay person) drops the Host. What should be done? I even once saw a chalice spill. – A reader in Leesburg A: To preface this response, in the past few weeks, several similar questions have been forwarded to “Straight Answers.” So it […]
2/4/15
Reading Time 4 min

Faith in healing and preaching

By
Why did Jesus come into the world? So that everyone who believes in Him might have eternal life (cf. Jn 3:16). However, His presence in the world manifests His power, life and love in such a way that, left in a wake of goodness, we may be unsure of where to direct our prayers and […]
2/4/15
Reading Time 3 min

Norms and ideals

By Russell Shaw
Is the Catholic Church’s teaching on marriage, including indissolubility, an ideal or a norm? Although the question may sound abstract, even esoteric, it has urgent, immediate practical implications. To say one admires the church’s teaching as an ideal is, intentionally or not, to undermine that teaching in the act of admiring it. Here is the […]
2/3/15
Reading Time 3 min

Courage and conviction

By Christina Capecchi
Irena Sendler was 29 years old when Nazi tanks slithered into Warsaw, casting a shadow of fear over the town and slicing it apart with a walled-off ghetto for the Jewish residents. There was no way she could sit back and watch. The social worker with the shy eyes and round baby face stood 4’11” […]
2/3/15
Reading Time 3 min

In search of heroes

By Elizabeth Foss
There has been a palpable shift in my household in the last year. Three boys have gone off into the world, leaving a girl as the eldest at home. Then there are two more boys, then three more girls. We have a mostly girl house now. And yet, I find myself thinking even more about […]
2/3/15
Reading Time 3 min

‘Je suis Charlie’?

By John Garvey
Islamic extremists touched a particularly sensitive nerve in the West this month with the murders of cartoonists from the satirical French weekly, Charlie Hebdo. The killings provoked a rally in Paris that French officials called the largest ever. President Francois Hollande was joined by the heads of European states, and by both the Israeli prime […]
1/30/15
Reading Time 3 min

Diabolical obsessions

By Fr. Jerry J. Pokorsky
In Sunday’s Gospel, the authority of Christ is revealed when He commands an “unclean spirit” to “come out” of the possessed man. Catholic teaching and traditional Catholic spiritual theology recognize that in some cases of diabolical possession, the faculties of the soul of the subject are dormant, allowing the demon (or demons) control over the […]
1/30/15
Reading Time 3 min

Paul Stefan Foundation to expand

By Katie Scott
The Paul Stefan Foundation, which offers a home and love to mothers in crisis pregnancies, is expanding from two houses in Unionville to a 30-room regional maternity housing and educational center in Orange. The Unionville houses eventually will be used as stepping stones to independent living. The new center is unique in the state due […]
1/28/15
Reading Time 2 min

Accelerated parenting

By Soren Johnson
As a dad of young children, I sometimes think that my wife and I are workers at a muddy and chaotic construction site – setting (I hope) solid foundations. Every once in a while we emerge from behind the construction perimeter fence and go out on a rare date together, only to disappear down below […]
1/28/15
Reading Time 3 min

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