Hallow, in Old English, means "holy" or "sacred." Therefore, "Hallows' Eve," or "Halloween," simply means "the evening of holy persons" and refers to the evening before All Saints Day, which is this day, November 1, on both Anglican and Catholic calendars. Halloween is a mixture of...
IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827 permission to publish this work is hereby granted. +Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004 Did you like this content? Please help keep us ad-free $5 More from Catholic.com What the Early Church Believed: The Real Presence tract The...
Is Christ God? The Catholic teaching that most draws Iglesia’s fire is Christ’s divinity. Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Iglesia claims that Jesus Christ is not God but a created being. Yet the Bible is clear: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Wor...
While Protestants also take part, Catholic churches are particularly associated with Lent. No church history indicates the year when believers first took part in the tradition or what was required. Lenten fasting “has consisted of abstaining from all animal products” for some, but “for others, ...
‘Silent Night’ is one of the world’s most famousChristmasmelodies. The story goes that the carol (originally ‘Stille Nacht’) was first performed on the evening of Christmas Eve in 1818. Joseph Mohr, a young Catholic priest at St Nicholas Church, Oberndorf bei Salzburg in Austria, was ...
If we can do that, we can unite the world in a way that has never happened before. Before Martin Luther the Western world was united by a single belief system and the Catholic Church. Because religion was inaccurate it could not be sustained into modern times as a unifying principle. Ther...
El Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) is a Catholic pilgrimage to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, where theapostle St. Jamesis believed to be buried. Visiting the Holy Land is a significant pilgrimage for Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike. Key sites include Jerus...
In the 8th century, the Catholic Church declared November 1 as a day to remember honorable Catholics who had passed away. It was commonly called “All Hallows’ Day,” and the night before (October 31) became known asAllhallowe’en. ...
“a novena is a nine days’ private or public devotion in the Catholic Churchto obtain special graces…to the novena belongs that hopeful mourning,of yearning, of prayer.The number nine in Holy Writ is indicative of suffering and grief”(St. Jerome, inEzech., vii, 24; — P.L., XXV,...
Anastasia’s Catholic Church for the funeral mass. The priest stood up and said, simply, “I have no idea what it must be like to lose a child.” In the wake of yet another mass school shooting, I can only repeat his words: I have no idea what it must be like to lose a child...