Nine-year-old Lucia dos Santos looked into the angry face of her mother and wondered if this was what the Beautiful Lady meant when she said Lucia would suffer. Little Lucia had never experienced such fury from her mother, nor had her mother ever called her a liar before. Indeed, her heart was deeply saddened. Yet a warm glow filled her whenever she thought about the Lady from Heaven who had visited her and her younger cousins, Jacinta and Francisco.
With almost one in every five Americans now sporting at least one tattoo, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a new consumer alert on potential health risks associated with these permanent markings.
The recent case of two students at George Mason University who sent explicit videos to someone who then blackmailed them into sending money has drawn new attention to a crime that is becoming a significant threat to children.
St. Phoebe, 1st Century DeaconessDuring discussions with 900 heads of female religious orders yesterday, Pope Francis indicated his desire to set up a commission to study the possibility of reinstating female deacons.
International concern is growing over the case of a 20 year-old woman who was given a lethal injection in the Netherlands after battling severe psychiatric problems related to sexual abuse she suffered during her childhood.
Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDSThere was once a day when racy ads by Calvin Klein were cutting edge, but a new underwear ad featuring a creepy upskirt shot of a young model in skimpy underwear is making the retailer look more like a bunch of aging pedophiles.
“The believer who has seriously pondered his Christian vocation, including what Revelation has to say about the possibility of martyrdom, cannot exclude it from his own life's horizon. The two thousand years since the birth of Christ are marked by the ever-present witness of the martyrs.”
~St. (Pope) John Paul II
For Reflection:
Should circumstances require it, am I willing to suffer martyrdom for the sake of the Church? Why or why not?
A Note on the Texts
My goal, however, was instead to provide short and simple readings about Mary, profound in their insights yet easily accessible to contemporary readers. So I've adapted the texts rather freely to achieve that goal. I've modernized the language, and where earlier standards of style called for long, complex sentences and interminable paragraphs, I've broken them up into shorter, more manageable pieces.
Two noted Catholic thinkers say the new trend to choose our own gender is indicative of one of the gravest threats to the family and the human person - gender ideology.
Discovery Girls publisher Catherine Lee and daughter AlexaDiscovery Girls, a magazine catering to girls between the ages of eight and 12, is under fire for publishing an in-depth article instructing teens on how to find the right swim suit for their body types.
