“Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Perhaps the most unique sacrament of the Catholic Church is marriage. For it is an institution that is often associated more with the secular world than the religious or spiritual realm. To be sure, marriage as an institution is inclusive of law, anthropology, and history.  Nevertheless, in the following discourse, I will seek to survey the different forms... Read more

The light over the confessional turned green, and I took a deep breath to calm myself as I stepped into the confessional. Though I was forty-three years old, this was to be my first confession, having recently converted to Catholicism. As countless Catholics have done before me, I made the sign of the Cross as I knelt in the confessional, “Bless me father, for I have sinned.”  There are two distinct events in which a Catholic may experience the forgiveness... Read more

“Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.” This was Flannery O’Connor’s flustered response to the claim that the Eucharist is only symbolic.  At the very heart of the Catholic faith is the belief, as set forth at the Council of Trent, that Jesus is “really, truly, and substantially present” in the Eucharist.  The Catholic Church is the steward of seven sacraments, but the sacrament par excellence is the Eucharist. It is “the fount and apex of the whole... Read more

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” – Acts 2:1-4 I suspect... Read more

Sacraments. The word conjures up a sense of the mystical and the transcendent. The etymology of the word sacrament strengthens this sense. The English word sacrament is born of the Latin word sacre, and is translated as sacred or hallowed. From the Greek translation, we get the word musterion, which we translate into the word mystery. These two ancient languages provide us with a working definition of the sacraments as a sacred mystery.  Saint Augustine provides us with the paradigmatic... Read more