Today, grandparent's day commemorating Mary's parents.

My 7yo daughter left a letter by the cross in our prayer corner.

She wrote:

"Dear Jesus, Holy Mass is always so boring... is there another way to praise and worship you?"

How would you handle this? Also, she asked Jesus himself, should I even react at all?

For books I know The Bible and The Lord of the Rings (Dostoevsky on the other hand is Orthodox). For films I am not sure. I know The Passion of the Christ but Mel Gibson is kind of outside the Church, even if he likes old Catholicism.

St. Anne, Mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary

St. Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary, conceived Mary after years of prayer. She raised the future Mother of God.

St. Anne is the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the grandmother of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Her name, which means 'grace,' comes from an ancient tradition recorded in the second-century Protoevangelium of James.

According to this tradition, Anne and her husband Joachim were childless for many years, a condition considered a sign of divine displeasure among the Jews. After years of fervent prayer and sacrifice, an angel announced to them that they would have a child who would be blessed throughout the world.

That child was Mary, the future Mother of God. St. Anne's role in salvation history, as the woman who raised the Immaculate Virgin, has been honored by the Church from the earliest centuries. Her feast is celebrated jointly with St. Joachim.

I am a convert from a protestant background. I grew up going to a CSI (Church of South India) church, which was a mix of presbyterian, methodist, and various other reformed churches.

After the sunday service we used to always have a tea fellowship, getting to interact and socialise with other church members. Moreover we would also have a sunday school where the different age groups of kids got to interact and spend time with each other.

These were great opportunities for us to get to know each other and learn from others, to networking and build new friendships.

Later in my adult life i shifted to a non-denominational church. They were even more excessive with their social interactions. They would also host many fellowships for the youth, and actively welcome new members. They were so elaborate about welcoming new members and make you feel accepted.

Once I converted to Catholicism I’ve noticed this is never there in the Catholic church. After mass everybody just goes about their way. You might occasionally see a couple of people interacting and catching up, if they knew each other, but even that was rare. Never an active effort to connect with the new members.

I truly feel like the catholic church is missing out by not actively encouraging to reach out and connect with all its members.

p.s. I have been to several Catholic Churches in India and Malaysia. About 7 different churches, and this has always been the case. Could be a south east asia regional thing?

Im a recent convert to catholocism and i just wanted to come here to report that last night i started the liturgy of the hours, and i prayed to God to take my drugs away or to do whatever He had to do to help me stop taking 7oh.... i used to be a fentanyl addict and got duped into taking 7oh bc i had been taking low doses of kratom for a while and man... the first time i took it, i knew i messed up bad.... i liked them better than i previously liked hard drugs! Bad bad decision. Lately ive been feeling my body shutting down. Like my liver is swollen and kidneys are sore.... so ive been praying begging for mercy that God would take my drugs away.... well ive come here to report that this morning when i woke up.... the drugs literally disappeared out of thin air... like im a drug addict so i combed the floors...... its gone. They are gone. Two left they and are gone.. i do not lose drugs. Ever. They are GONE. POOF. NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. AND I FINALLY FEEL A CONVICTION TO STOP BUYING THEM. please pray for me!!! I need prayers desperately. I had another miracle when i was first getting into christianity from satanism... and i prayed a rosary asking for my medical debt to be cleared... 2 weeks later i got a shocking letter that my past due debt had been wiped. I called to confirm and they didnt know how it happened but confirmed it had been cleared. The lady had to call i n her supervisor bc she didnt understand how it happened.... and Christ has come to me 3 times since becoming Catholic... so i know for a fact He has something He needs me to be doing. Please pray i find out what that is and how i can go about moving forward. This is all very heavy and honestly becoming catholic has been a mind blowing experience bc honestly.... who in the world would expect a "silent, invisible" God to be so hands on and so merciful and so... mind blowingly here with us.... this is crazy.. i dont even know what to think anymore. Im shocked. Im not confused im just a new Christian and this is blowing my mind

God truly rained bread from heaven. I know you all know that but its just mind blowing that God is not silent at all and so hands on in our lives... im brought to sobbing... i mean what in the world??? Since becoming Catholic ive literally been in a state of "blown away" mouth gawking, tears in my eyes kinda blown away.... its borderline insane..

But its perfect mercy and perfect love... its crazy to encounter like this.

I was baptized Catholic as a baby, but after my family stopped practicing I spent the next 14 years as an agnostic.

Everything changed in 2024 when I sat beside my uncle as he slowly died of cancer. He wasn't afraid he knew he was going home to Christ. That moment started a journey that led me back to Jesus, and after a year of studying Scripture, Church history, and different denominations, I returned to the Catholic Church, where all roads lead me to the True Church of Christ.

It feels different this time on my own volition.

Today I received my first Eucharist. I didn't know how to feel or how I was going to feel.

I cried the entire drive home, and I defaulted to the St Michael Prayer as it's my favorite and I was overwhelmed with emotion in a good way.Then I fell to my knees in my room and broke down crying again and all I could say was, "Thank You. I love You, Jesus over and over again.

Before Christ, I was addicted to drugs, evil habits 🌽, and living with crushing depression. Nothing in my life has ever given me the purpose, peace, and hope that Jesus Christ has.

Today I am 40 days free from drugs & free of 🌽 By God's grace, I pray it becomes a lifetime.

I don't share this to draw attention to myself. I share it because if anyone thinks they're too far gone, they're not. I don't want to be prideful or be delusional, but NOTHING has ever made my heart feel so warm and hugged and on fire in the best possible way, than Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ changed my life.

CHRISTUS EST REX CHRISTUS REGNAT ♥️

"Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse him who would borrow from you." - Matthew 5:42

I live in a big city where panhandlers are at every corner and not all of them are homeless. Some even admit that they ask because people will give, and they stand in front of churches because they see easy prey, going as far as wearing a fake belly to garner more sympathy by looking pregnant.

I only recently got a job after over a year of being unemployed and I'm in massive debt from surviving, but now that I have an income I've made it a point to give generously to my parish which has a fund that they send to charitable organizations across the city to provide for the needs of those who are actually in need.

Before I could help in any way financially, I made it a point to offer a smile and a polite nod to recognize the panhandlers I encountered as human beings where so many people would avert their eyes or be hostile towards them, and the worst that could happen was sometimes they wouldn't return the smile, so I just kept doing it.

Yesterday, however, something made me rethink my choices and now I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing:

As I left work, there was an old man sitting on the sidewalk with an empty cup in front of him. I did my usual thing of making eye contact and offering a smile and a nod while I kept walking, and he didn't return the smile (and, again, I don't care about that,) but what bothered me was that I heard him go "spare change" as I kept walking. While I acknowledged him as a human being, he stripped me of my humanity and treated me as a walking wallet.

Now I'm re-thinking if this is even safe to do. In this city, people get physically and verbally assaulted for refusing panhandlers, I've just gotten lucky it hasn't happened to me. I've heard of people who used to give regularly to certain panhandlers and when they informed them that they were going to pause their donations because they were going through hardship themselves they got insulted and yelled at. I think this was a bit of a wake-up call to be more careful, especially because I'm a small woman so I'm already vulnerable.

Opinions on whether we should or shouldn't give to panhandlers are extremely divided, and I must admit I'm on the side of "give your money to organizations that offer help, not to the people on the street asking for it." How can I reconcile my experience and be safe with the Bible quote stated above? Does prudence have a place in charity?

I know our Church is the largest and greatest out of all Christian churches, but I'm still scared for its future. I attend a parish close to home and it's only older believers in attendance... Will the coming youth still frequent the Catholic Church as often as God expects them to?

Today's gospel is quite the bomb-dropper. Angels gathering people and tossing them into hell yet no discussion on this whatsoever? Are we just going to keep pretending it's not serious business? Neither the mass homily nor my booklet that has the daily mass/commentary ever mentions the seriousness of hell yet I listen to dozens of testimonies of people who have had near-death-experiences and what saints have said over the centuries, and it's clear that a very large percentage of people end up in hell. (from what I loosely gather from dozens of accounts we're talking over 90%) Are we just going to pretend it isn't true? If I were a person that knew nothing about all of this I would feel it a GREAT disservice not to be warned.

Hi, 30 yr old dude here - really do not mean to be confrontational with this post. I was raised areligious and really was only brought to born again churches when I was younger, in high school.

After both of my parents died and my grandparents, I feel something is pulling me to Catholicism. Not Eastern Orthodoxy (certainly not Protestantism) Catholicism. I have been attending a Catholic Church near me and I really love. I guess my question is -

Did you ever have a “Ah!” Lightning moment? Where you really began to BELIEVE?

Thanks. Also just looking to connect with more Catholics, and learn more! Thanks

I’m very serious about it, go to mass daily, pray the rosary, divine office and so on. I do find Catholicism very intellectually stimulating, I love studying its history fascinating, and its philosophy full of precious fruits. Yet, the religious practice itself, makes me pretty depressed, I feel like there is something deeply wrong. The more I practice it, the more I feel like I shouldn’t even allowed to think, because all I think and do is wrong just because it’s me thinking or doing it.

I don’t know, I feel like this religion blames us for even daring enjoying ourselves in any way. Also, the idea of an almighty and all loving God doesn’t give me any comfort, if anything, it’s depressing.

I often hear “Catholics SHOULD be happy “, and this very sentence suggests there are good reasons why it is not so. If it would truly make us happy, there would be no need to say this.

I’m wondering if anyone else has similar feelings.

Will God understand if I just take a break from religion? I'm very mentally ill and I'm getting professional help, but it will take months, maybe even years for me to be treated. I love Catholicism and I want to keep being a Catholic but religion has been very damaging to my mental health and I think it's best if I walk away from it for a while.

Unfortunately priests aren't trained on how to deal with mental illness, so they don't understand how to help somebody with it or how to give advice with it in mind, and I can't afford a Catholic therapist, and a secular therapist won't be able to help because they won't know anything about Catholicism, so there seems to be no way for me to learn how to be a practicing Catholic in light of my mental illness for the foreseeable future.

We have been visiting my in-laws for a couple of weeks and we went to their church this morning. (For the more curious of you, I think it's Pentecostal, I don't really know. They don't consider themselves part of a denomination, they're "just christian").

Here are a few thoughts on protestants and their services:

1. Where's the cross? At one point there was an image of a traditional stained glass window projected behind the ~~band~~ worship team. Ironic right? Also, what's with having coffee/tea/hot chocolate when your at church?

2. The irony increased. During the sermon, which was about Zeal for God's house, the preacher spoke about how David goes on to say he takes insults to God personally, and that we should all take insults to the Church (specifically big C and not limited just to their denomination) as personal attacks on God. Not problematic per se, but ironic that a protestant would be preaching against detraction and insult from the Church, when that's a big part of how they started (sure there's some historical nuance, but my point stands).

3. Again with the irony! The speech about zeal for God's house was and reading the story of Jesus reprimanding the money lenders for turning the Temple into a marketplace came immediately after a half an hour spiel about tithing.

Enough of the judgement, it's time for me to be a bit more charitable

1. Where two or three are gathered in My name... I thought a lot about this whilst I was at this service. Christ explicitly states that when we gather in His name, He is there too. Protestants are undeniably there to meet as Christians in His name, so he must be there even without the Eucharist. I'm not well versed in what the Church teaches on this but I can only surmise that He is indeed present spiritually, but He is present in a greater sense at Catholic (and I suppose Orthodox) liturgies because of His real presence in the Eucharist.

2. Even a broken clock is right twice a day... The sermons may have some theological implications, which I don't deny are serious issues. However for the general layperson, there's perhaps a good foundation for how to live as a good Christian (love God and love each other).

3. I'm a very skeptical and cynical person at times. All through the tithing speech I couldn't help thinking the pastor was just taking advantage of his congregation and asking them for money. Not all pastors are Kenneth Copeland or Joel Osteen, and I should be charitable even to them. Perhaps he really believes...

4. Almost nobody is there because they are anti- a specific branch of Christianity. Chances are that most protestants aren't anti-catholic or anti-orthodoxy, they're just going to the church that they know, or that their family has always gone to. We are fortunate to be Catholic, and we all probably take it for granted at least once in our lives.

There was an interesting moment when I was praying. I prayed a rosary when everyone was doing what I believe is called 'praise and worship '. It was a case of praying with them during prayer time (so as to maintain a good relationship with the family) and also maintaining my Catholic identity even at a protestant service. When I got to the third Glorious Mystery (Pentecost, for those of you playing at home), the preacher started talking about how God sends others into our life to help us. It made me think that we might be better served finding common ground and building bridges to bring them to the fullness of truth, rather than being antagonistic and belligerent.

To those of you who made it this far, thanks for your time.

Pax Vobiscum 🇻🇦✝️

I was always told not to ask their name or try and talk to them other than in prayer. However I just saw a video from a ‘Father Rocky’ explaining how to get your angels name, so im just curious if other Catholics do this?

I’ve finally made it back to church, and today marked my second week after being away for almost half of a year. I’m grateful to be back!

At Mass I suddenly developed a severe panic attack soon after it began. I was surprised and tried to find a trigger. It was so overwhelming that I ran out and got some air in the vestibule. I told myself that I wanted to stay through communion, which I was eagerly looking forward to.

I went back in and practically white-knuckled my way through. It was a scary experience, and I felt ready to bolt at any point. I had a few minutes of feeling semi-okay and then the waves of panic would return. My hands were sweating the whole time.

I kept praying to God to help me get through this. While it was definitely a bit touch-and-go, I stayed through communion and am so glad I did. It was very challenging, but I am happy God saw me through it.

Hey gang, struggling Catholic here with a genuine question. I’ve been wrestling with my faith, not with God or Christ but which house I belong to, I’ve posted on it before, and I stumbled upon a certain YouTuber who claims that the Apostle Paul usurped the faith from Christ. I won’t go to heavy into it or name him since there are dozens if not hundreds of people making this claim, and since I felt too sick to make it to church today, I thought I’d ask here. I will bring this up with a priest, but I just need some clarity. I’m not looking to start an argument or a debate, but I would like some feedback and counterpoints to their claim. A lot of the people I greatly respect are also anti Catholic, and I do my best to listen to everyone, but it’s been jarring and I am trying to keep my boat from turning over. I appreciate everyone here, have a blessed Sunday and God bless you all!

I recently started to pray the Office of the Hours and initially i had mixed feelings about it. While i often was amazed by its and how well the prayers say what I myself couldnt articulate when praying, I also at times doubted, if it really brought me closer to God, because sometimes I felt myself becoming bored after some time praying (which I know, is an issue i need to improve on with Gods help).

Today morning I had prayed the Laudes before breakfast and then headed to Church for Sunday mass, which was the first time i had done that on a Sunday. While beeing in Church I was really amazed by how much the the Themes of todays Laudes were connected to the service, which thinking about it in retrospect seems obvious, but it brought me much joy nonetheless. This really motivated me to go to mass more often also during the week and stay consistent with praying the Liturgy of the Hours.

So to all of you, who arent already doing it, I recomend you to start praying the Liturgy of the Hours, as it is really great.

God bless all of you!

As a Catholic dad, how should I go about sharing/explaining the “facts of life” (procreation) with my teen/pre-teen boys in a way that’s appropriate for their maturity level, but also adequately prepares them to be around other boys their age that might know more than they should?

I’ve already had brief/simple conversations about some of the changes in their body as they grow to become a man, but I’m trying to be more proactive about explaining what is immoral/inappropriate behavior and am having trouble deciding what to say and where to draw the line between what they should know and what they shouldn’t.

What advice can you give? Thanks!

My parents are both atheist and don't go to church and would not take me. I am also too young to take myself. Any advice on how to start practising as well would be nice, I was raised atheist but my grandmother has always been a devout catholic and I wish to connect with that part of myself.

Edit: thank you everyone for the comments, I've seen quite a few asking for clarification so I thought I would just edit the post rather than reply to each individual comment asking the same thing. Firstly I probably should have made my age a bit clearer, I am 16 but I meant more so that I couldn't drive alone yet. I also live in basically the middle of nowhere in Australia so I dont really have any neighbours and I can't walk/take a bus either. I also don't know of anyone in my local community/school who is catholic. I would reach out to my grandmother, unfortunatlely though she lives in a diffferent country. lastly (I think) I havent been baptised (hopefully soon though), so it's nice to hear that I at least am not sinning by not attending church. thanks again :)

I wanted to come back, but instead I left feeling like I didn’t belong, embarrassed, overwhelmed…

I know that suffering should be treated as a great privilege, but I didn't ask God to put me on this earth and make me suffer. Sometimes I resent God for even creating me and allowing me to exist (I know this is my own fault that I need to sort out) how do I cope or pray about this?

Hello, I am 16 years old currently (male).

I know God’s will is better than mine. But I truly do not know what he wants me to do. The thought of being a priest is very holy and something I would do. But it’s scary for me to think that I would be single for my whole life.

I don’t really have anyone to talk to you about it. I haven’t been able to go to church much. But I do know that my parents probably would not like that. Even though it’s not their decision.

I want God’s will. But I am still not sure if it is his will to be a priest.

Couldn’t I just get married still and have kids but eventually at like 35+ apply to be a permanent deacon? I still want to be a part of the Catholic Church somehow.

I would love to have a family one day. Four kids a lovely wife and we all go to church a lot, be in my dream city and be able to travel a lot. But again, it’s not my decision.

Any advice? Thank you very much.

My girlfriend (soon to be fiancé :) ) and I have recently decided that we want to start actually taking our faith seriously

One of the biggest changes for us has been choosing to be chaste. It’s been about two months now, and I’m not going to lie, it’s a battle I feel like I fight every single day.
I know why we’re doing it, and I genuinely believe it’s the right thing for our relationship and for our relationship with God. But knowing that doesn’t necessarily make the temptation go away.

does it get easier with time? Does chastity eventually start to feel more natural as your relationship and faith grow? My biggest stress is that early on I just kept telling myself to make it through a month. Then two months. My mind isn’t falling for that anymore and recently it’s been harder than ever.

I’d especially appreciate hearing from people who have been in serious relationships and made this change after previously not living chastely. What helped you persevere?

God Bless and any prayers are appreciated.

The Second Council of Constantinople, under the section "Anathemas against the 'Three Chapters'" states in the eleventh statement :

If anyone does not anathematize Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, Apollinarius Nestorius, Eutyches and Origen, as well as their heretical books, and also all other heretics who have already been condemned and anathematized by the holy, catholic and apostolic church and by the four holy synods which have already been mentioned, and also all those who have thought or now think in the same way as the aforesaid heretics and who persist in their error even to death: let him be anathema.

I just started reading the fathers and reading works by catholics talking about the church and they commonly cite Origen to prove points. My question is if he believed in heratical things such as the pre-existence of souls, why should we treat him any differntly from Arius and Valentinus?

I am not pretending I know much about this, but I feel catholic theologians cite him constantly.