There are four distinct kinds of Christian prayer: There is Incarnational prayer, Mystical prayer, Affective prayer, and Priestly prayer. What are these? How are they different from each other?

We are continuing these catecheses speaking about apostolic zeal, that is, what the Christian feels in order to carry out the proclamation of Jesus Christ.

In St. Matthew’s Gospel, St. Peter asks Jesus how many times must he forgive someone who sins against him. “As many as seven times?” Jesus answers “not seven times but seventy-seven times” (Mt 18:21-22). 

In much of the secularized world, we live in a climate that is somewhat anti-ecclesial and anti-clerical. It’s quite fashionable today to bash the churches, be they Roman Catholic, Protestant or Evangelical. This is often done in the name of being open-minded and enlightened, and it’s the one bias that’s intellectually sanctioned. Say something derogatory about any other group in society, and you will be brought to account; say something disparaging about the church and there are no such consequences.

Today we are speaking about evangelization, about apostolic zeal, of bearing the name of Jesus.

Does purgatory really exist?  If it exists, where is it?

The upcoming Sunday Mass Readings are pivotal for our mission as disciples to go into the world and tell the good news: The Ascension of The Lord and Pentecost Sunday.

In the musical “Les Miserables,” there’s a particularly haunting song, sung by a dying woman (Fantine) who has been crushed by virtually every unfairness that life can deal a person. Abandoned by her husband, sexually harassed by her employer, caught in abject poverty, physically ill and dying, even as her main anxiety is about what will happen to her young daughter after she dies, she offers this lament.

After having seen St Paul’s personal zeal for the Gospel, we can reflect more deeply on the evangelical zeal as he himself speaks of it and describes it in some of his letters.

Easter continues as we celebrate the 5th and 6th Sundays of this season. We hear in the Gospels the reality of the Trinity, as the father is known by the son; the son is the face of the father; and the Holy Spirit is the giver of life. Christ the Lord dwells within and among the faithful.

After Jesus rose from the dead, his first appearances were to women. Why?

I understand that in 1983 Pope John Paul II proclaimed that the year  marked 1,950 years since Jesus died.  That would indicate that Jesus died in the year 33 A.D. Is the year 33 correct?

What is the history of the Bible?

The night before he died, Jesus struggled mightily to accept his father’s will. The Gospels describe him in the Garden of Gethsemane, prostrate on the ground, “sweating blood” and begging his father to save him from the brutal death that awaited him.

  I noticed that sometimes during Mass we recite the Nicene Creed and other times we recite the Apostles’ Creed.  Why do we change?

Our Lenten pilgrimage is nearing the end. We began in the desert, our foreheads dusted with ashes, our posture of penance with promises of prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Now we kneel before the Lord, hearts and heads bowed for his great mercy as we pray, “Save us, our Savior of the world, for by your cross and resurrection you have set us free.”