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The appeal of St. Francis remains undimmed almost eight centuries after his death. In looking at him, people have always been helped to see Christ.
Near the end of his life, Saint Anthony of Padua composed a collection of sermons or “sermon notes.”
I’ve heard different explanations about how the books in the Bible got there. Who chose them and why?
The list of biblical books is called the canon (a Greek word from the Semitic term for a measuring rod). In this context, it’s a measurement of whether the writings called canonical belong to the inspired word of God.
All mainline Christians have agreed since the fourth century about which 27 books belong in the New Testament. Thus, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are there, but the Gospels of Thomas, Peter, Mary, and many others are not.
The Lost City of Z
In the early 1900s, Col. Percy Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam), an experienced traveler and surveyor, trains British soldiers in Cork, Ireland. He lives there with his wife, Nina (Sienna Miller), and young son, Jack.
Where is heaven? Will my husband who died two years ago know me and still love me? If we have hurt people, will they have forgiven us by the time we get to heaven? What if there’s nothing beyond a person’s casket and grave?
Heaven is more a state of being than a place such as Boston, St. Louis, Phoenix, or Los Angeles a place that you can find on a map. Christians understand heaven as being with God for all eternity.
I understand that my prayers for someone will not cause God to move that person to the head of the line or guarantee a desired outcome. Then why do we pray for other people?
We cannot pray honestly for someone else without at the same time growing in compassion toward that person in particular and indeed toward all suffering people. Through honest prayer, we become more like the God to whom we address those prayers.
His words about marriage have been welcomed by many but not by everyone. Conscience is the key.
I regularly read the prayer petitions that come in on the monitor at St. Anthony Shrine where I live. In a two-week period, just before Christmas, I was captivated by several requests for prayers for little boys with cancer.
In a document entitled The Message of Fatima, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith declared that “Fatima is undoubtedly the most prophetic of modern apparitions.” To understand the reason for this, we should look first at the historical context in which these messages were revealed.
Francis’ recognition and honoring of the feminine, that was such an important part of his life and teaching, took concrete and personal shape in the person of Clare. She has usually been overshadowed by her partner, Francis, in the public imagination; in her writings, she seems to see herself that way very humbly, as we see in this wonderful opening quote. But Chiara Offreduccio (1193–1253) has finally begun to emerge as her own person, with her own unique identity, writings, and message.
