Father Michael Hennigen One of my favorite places to go ever since I was young is the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. My family and I would always stay in Gatlinburg, and we still go down as a family every year in the summer. Visiting the Great Smoky Mountains is spiritually uplifting, a […]
By Father Britton Hennessey. To me, one of the most moving aspects of the Easter Triduum that accompanies and accentuates the sublime celebration of the Paschal Mystery has always been the dramatic changes that happen in the interior of the church. After the conclusion of the Holy Thursday liturgy, the Blessed Sacrament is reposed in […]
By Father Andrew Young. “Let the entire man be seized with fear; let the whole world tremble; let Heaven exult when Christ, the Son of the Living God, is on the altar in the hands of the priest.” These words from St. Francis of Assisi should give us pause as we reflect upon the reality […]
By Brad Torline. Becoming a parent for the first time is an intimidating experience for most people even under normal circumstances. Imagine what it’s been like in the year 2020. I had finally mustered up the courage to dive into marriage and fatherhood and then, less than three months after announcing our first pregnancy, a […]
By David Cooley. In the first installment of “The Eucharist: The Source and Summit” we focused on the doctrine of Jesus’ Real Presence and on prefigurements of the Eucharist in the Old Testament. In this second installment we now turn to the New Testament and will focus on the scriptural scenes and passages that pave […]
By Father Nicholas Rottman. Okay, I’ll admit it, “O little town of the House of Bread” does not have quite the same ring to it as “O little town of Bethlehem.” But, although not helpful for singing, it may be very helpful for our faith to know that “Bethlehem” means exactly that. The name is […]
By Father Ryan Stenger. The only one of the miracles of Jesus that is included in all four of the Gospel accounts is his feeding of the crowd of five thousand with miraculously multiplied bread and fish. Obviously this event greatly affected the first Christians and was influential in forming their understanding of the Lord’s […]
By Father Michael Comer. “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, you will not have life within you.” Jesus spoke these words to a group of his disciples — those who had already begun to follow him, and who had at least the beginnings of faith in him. […]
By Father Daniel Schomaker. The Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life. The other sacraments, and indeed all ecclesiastical ministries and works of the apostolate, are bound up with the Eucharist and are oriented toward it. For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church, namely Christ […]
By David Cooley. Under the direction of Bishop Roger Foys, the Office of Catechesis and Evangelization has teamed up with the Messenger to produce catechetical articles on the Eucharist. Long-term readers of the Messenger will recognize these articles since they were published previously. However, they have been re-structured here. This series on the Eucharist covers […]