
St. Anthony Messenger: 125 Years and Still Going Strong
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Thanks for welcoming us into your home, school, parish, or place of business for 125 years of growing as Catholics, families, and citizens.

Before my oldest daughter, Maddie, was born, I remember spending what seemed like hours washing, folding, and refolding her little outfits before placing them in her tiny laundry basket. I remember holding them close to my face, breathing in their baby-powdered scent. I would then carefully place each of them neatly in her dresser drawer, anxiously awaiting her arrival.

What is the Catholic Church’s position on entering prayer? Is it New Age? Is it allowed for Catholics? Why or why not?
It is allowed, despite what some self-appointed guardians of Catholic orthodoxy are claiming on the Internet.
In a 2014 article in America (December 3), Sidney Callahan wrote: “The simple steps of the method are to choose a sacred word as a symbol of your intention to consent to God’s presence and action within. Then, settling comfortably, you introduce the sacred word and remain quietly attentive within God’s presence.

How does the Book of Revelation speak to 2018 Catholics? Should all its visions, images, warnings, cautions, advice, and guidance be applied to their spiritual and temporal lives?
The Book of Revelation, sometimes called the Apocalypse (from the Greek verb “to reveal “), was intended as a book of consolation for Christians who were suffering violent persecutions from pagan rulers in the last decade of the first century AD. Its affirmation that God’s power and justice will ultimately prevail continues to console Christians.

One of my high school students asked if someone with a prosthetic hand could be ordained. If so, would that hand be anointed? What if a man was born without arms?
I think that all the things you mentioned are possible. The Catholic Church has established various impediments to ordination, but it can also dispense from many of them.
At one time, a man blind in his left eye could not be ordained because that was his “canonical eye. ” The missal rested on a stand to the priest’s left at the altar.

Now I am under the sky. The birds are silent now. But the frogs have begun singing their pleasure in all the waters and in the warm, green places where the sunshine is wonderful. Praise Christ, all you living creatures. For Him you and I were created. With every breath we love Him. My psalms fulfill your dim, unconscious song, O brothers in this wood…

In its fullness, prayer is an encounter with God that transforms the way we see and interact with the world. As so many saints have suggested, it is like a bright light that reveals what we otherwise do not see.

If anyone needed proof that sin has screwed up our world on a massive scale, all we need to do is ask them look at the horrific and cruel injustices perpetuated upon nonhuman animals. But as Christians we know that Jesus has redeemed human beings and all of creation. This redemption has already happened, but it has not been fully implemented. More work remains. In giving human beings dominion over creation, God has charged each of us with protecting its many creatures—both human and nonhuman. How will we respond?

Christopher Heffron reviews True Conviction and Pope: The Most Powerful Man in History.

The Heart of Nuba
Dr. Tom Catena grew up in a Catholic family in Amsterdam, New York, played football for Brown University, earned a degree in engineering, and then decided he wanted to help people. After becoming a physician and serving in the military, he left for Africa to become a medical missionary.
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