Why Do Catholics Venerate the Arms and Tongues and Blood of Saints?
Carolyn Pirtle, Program Director of the ND Center for Liturgy & composer of liturgical music, probes the relationship between relics and sacrifice.
Articles » Catechesis
Death Clarifies What We Love
Gregory Floyd, who teaches in the Core Program at Seton Hall, considers a kind of theology that is not written in words, but written in lives.
This Is What You Get When Politics Invades Our Ecclesial Lives
Robert Christian, Editor of Millennial Journal and PhD candidate in politics at CUA, identifies how and why political sectarianism misses the common good.
Can Catholicism Still Draw from Ecumenism's Wells?
Kimberly Belcher, Notre Dame Assistant Professor of Theology, suggests how ecumenism can make Catholics both more Catholic and catholic.
Epiphany: It's Foolish to Pretend It's Easy to Remember the Poor
John Michael Hogue, ND theology major and Church Life Intern at the McGrath Institute for Church Life, on the Epiphany and the difficulty of gift-giving.
Am I the Mother of Christ?
John Cavadini tries to imagine what Isaac of Stella means by giving birth to Christ.
The Last Judgment Is the Reason for the Advent Season
Fr. Peter Nguyen reminds us Christmas celebrates the First Coming of Christ and Advent the Second Coming.
The Options for Identity-Discernment in a Secular Age
Robert Aaron Wessman, Roman Catholic priest and member of the Glenmary Home Missioners, takes an honest look at how to speak to Millennials, not at them.
Humor in the Bible
Charles Kestermeier, SJ, professor in Creighton University's English department, highlights the humorous passages in the Old and New Testaments.
Belief in the Communion of Saints Isn't Optional
Leonard J. DeLorenzo, director of Notre Dame Vision, lays out why there is no doubt the communio sanctorum is central to a fully orthodox Catholic faith.
Ancient Israel's Law of Defending the Weak
Anthony Pagliarini of Notre Dame's theology department argues the Law requires of Israel an extension of what God himself has done for her.
Beauty Already Has Saved the World
St. Paul concludes his letter to the Philippians with an exhortation: Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and...Don’t Panic About Nones Who Stop Believing
Sooner or later—probably sooner rather than later these days—children stop believing in Santa Claus. My younger brother was an exception to this rule, although to be fair there were a lot more cultural supports for Santa Clau...
Friendship with God is the Basis for All Friendships
The imagery of friendship is present in the first half of John’s narrative, but it comes into sharpest focus in the second half of the Gospel, particularly during the Last Supper, when Jesus refers to his disciples as “friend...
Using Metaphors to Teach Prayer
Scriptures pulse with metaphorical phrases and images (“The Lord is my shepherd . . .”). Jesus’s description of the Kingdom of God is a metaphor. The National Directory for Catechesis [NDC] urges catechists to recognize...
"Come, Holy Spirit": The Vulnerable Bravery of Fr. Hesburgh's Favorite Prayer
The late Fr. Ted Hesburgh, C.S.C., beloved former president of the University of Notre Dame, stated again and again in homilies and interviews that his favorite prayer was “Come, Holy Spirit.” He said: The Holy Spirit is the ...
"You can eat with us": On Poverty and Community
Twenty years ago, I asked Paul, the tall, burly, blunt, and opinionated leader of the Catholic soup kitchen, if I could take my youth group to serve dinner. “Nope!” he barked. Startled, I squeaked out, “Um, why?” ...The Rosary: Back to the Basics
ND Graduate Sami Burr on teaching Catholicism to middle-schoolers.
Does a Catholic School Evangelize?
Our weekly post describing what you'll find in this week's Church Life. Celebrating Catholic Schools week, Church Life will ask this week: does a Catholic school evangelize?
The Feast of the Holy Family: Not Just a Model
Those of us suspicious of the pious platitudes that too often make their home in Catholic homiletic practice know that the feast of the Holy Family is a "code-red" day for such platitudes. We families assemble in our parishes a...
Weeping with Rachel, in Sorrow and Hope
Hope Feist on the Holy Innocents
Auden on the Feast of St. Stephen
Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree, Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes— Some have got broken—and carrying them up to the attic. The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt...
Advent Fun and Festivity: St. Lucy's Day
Today the Church celebrates the feast of St. Lucy, a third-century Sicilian girl who pledged her virginity to Christ and endured a martyr’s death when she refused to renounce her faith. Numerous versions of St. Lucy’s martyrd...
The Virgin of Guadalupe and the Season of Advent
For some Christian people throughout the world, especially Mexican and Mexican-American Christians, December 12, of course, is the celebration of the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe. The feast commemorates her December 9–12, 1531 appearan...
The Immaculate Conception: A Dogma of Consent
The dogma of the Immaculate Conception is a doctrine that continually mystifies me. Each year as December rolls around, I annually struggle to understand what exactly is so significant here that elevates this feast to a holy day of ...
The Politics of the Saints
On this feast of All Saints Day, we remember that the saints present to us a politics of praise that are the ultimate vocation of the human being.
The Word Made Beautiful: The Saint John's Bible
A few years ago the McGrath Institute for Church Life welcomed Donald Jackson, the visionary calligrapher commissioned by St. John’s University in Collegeville to create a hand-written illuminated Bible using techniques that date b...
Three Views on 'Having a Vocation'
When I was in grade school, the whole idea of having a vocation seemed rather clear to me: I learned that I had a vocation either to the priesthood or to marriage, and that was it. Anyone not choosing to be a priest (or brother) or a nun...
Confessions of a Post-RadTrad Millennial: The Perfect Sacrifice
I grew up in a parish that was very much steeped in the “Spirit of Vatican II”: our priests used glass chalices, wore their stoles over their chasubles, and there wasn’t a Sunday in Ordinary Time when we didn’t sw...
The Stinginess of the Sinner
We often think about sin as extravagance. The sinner is the one who drinks too much, gambles too much, who desires pleasure too much. On the 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time, we consider the stinginess of the sinner. The sinner who loves not...