The information provided by the media must be at the service of the common good. Its content must be true and – within the limits of justice and charity – also complete. Furthermore, information must be communicated honestly and properly with scrupulous respect for moral laws and the legitimate rights and dignity of the person.
READ MORESt. Peter Julian Eymard’s Eucharistic love began very young. One day when he was five years old, his parents couldn’t find him and sent out his older sister Marianne to look for him. She found him in the church, where he had used a stool to climb up on the surface of the high altar and was leaning his head upon the tabernacle door. When Marianne, astonished, asked what he was doing, with childlike simplicity he replied, “I am near Jesus and I am listening to him!” Before he was able to receive his first Holy Communion, he used to do something similar with his sister. He would sit next to her at Mass and, after she had returned from the Communion rail, he would put his head on her breast and say with joyful fervor, “I can feel his presence!” When he made his first Communion at 12 years old, he embraced Jesus within and told him, “I shall be a priest, I promise you!”
READ MOREA Christian must bear witness to the truth of the Gospel in every field of his activity, both public and private, and also if necessary, with the sacrifice of his very life. Martyrdom is the supreme witness given to the truth of the faith.
READ MOREIn Alatri’s Cathedral of Saint Paul the Apostle, there is kept even today the reliquary of the Eucharistic miracle that occurred in 1228 and consisted in a fragment of the Host turning into flesh. A young woman, in an effort to regain the love of her sweetheart, consulted a sorceress who ordered her to steal a consecrated Host to make a love potion. During Mass, the young woman hid a Host in a cloth. But when she got home, she realized that the Host had been transformed into bleeding flesh.
READ MOREMost people know St. Teresa of Calcutta, commonly known as Mother Teresa, as the woman who dedicated herself to the love and care of the poor in Calcutta, India. Her desire to serve these people, many of whom were dying on the streets, led to her fame throughout the world. However, most people miss the reason for the initial calling and the continuation of this call until her death. It was Jesus in the Eucharist.
READ MOREOn the international level, all nations and institutions must carry out their work in solidarity and subsidiarity for the purpose of eliminating or at least reducing poverty, the inequality of resources and economic potential, economic and social injustices, the exploitation of persons, the accumulation of debts by poor countries, and the perverse mechanisms that impede the development of the less advanced countries.
READ MOREIn Rimini, there is a church that was built in honor of the Eucharistic miracle performed by Saint Anthony of Padua in 1227. This episode is cited in Begninitas, one of the most ancient sources regarding the life of Saint Anthony. “This saintly man was speaking with a faithless heretic who was opposed to the sacrament of the Eucharist and whom the saint had nearly led to the Catholic faith. But, after numerous arguments, this heretic declared: ‘If you, Anthony, produce a miracle and demonstrate to me that the Body of Christ is truly Communion, I will completely renounce my heresy and immediately convert to the Catholic faith.
READ MOREGemma had the most passionate love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. On the day of her first Communion she remarked: "I feel I am burning. I feel there is a fire kindled in my heart." This fire never went out, but in time became a devouring flame, so that one day the saintly girl could exclaim: "I feel love will finally conquer me, and that my soul, unable to love Jesus enough here on earth, will be in danger of being separated from my body. How blessed to love Jesus alone .... Oh father, if you could say in a few days time: 'Gemma was a victim of love and died of love.' What a blessed death! I would wish to be dissolved and that my heart might become ashes so that all could say: 'The heart of Gemma has been consumed by Jesus.' "
READ MOREThe Seventh Commandment: You Shall Not Steal
513. What is the meaning of work?
Work is both a duty and a right through which human beings collaborate with God the Creator. Indeed, by working with commitment and competence we fulfil the potential inscribed in our nature, honor the Creator’s gifts and the talents received from him, provide for ourselves and for our families, and serve the human community. Furthermore, by the grace of God, work can be a means of sanctification and collaboration with Christ for the salvation of others.
READ MORETo this day in Trani, Puglia, the relic of this miracle is housed in the Cathedral of Holy Mary of the Assumption. There are numerous documents which retell this miracle. Brother Bartolomeo Campi describes in his work, “L’Inamorato di Gesù Cristo” (1625), an accurate account: “Pretending to be Christian, the woman received Communion with the others… and took the consecrated Host from her mouth and transferred the Holy Eucharist to a handkerchief. Once home she wanted to experiment with whether or not the Blessed Sacrament was bread and put the consecrated Host into a heated frying pan filled with oil. Upon contact with the boiling oil, the consecrated Host miraculously became Bloody Flesh and a hemorrhage, so to speak, would not stop flowing and went from the pan all over the cursed woman and her house. Terrorized, the woman began to scream… and the neighbors ran over to find out the reasons behind her cries…”.
READ MOREClare was the first woman who followed St. Francis and his way of life. St. Francis appointed Clare as the women’s superior of the first convent they founded in 1215. Her community would soon be known as the Poor Clares. Wearing no shoes, fasting often, perpetually abstaining from meat and sleeping on the hard wood floors the sisters radically embraced a life of poverty and penance. Their embrace of poverty was only equaled by their embrace of prayer. Taking a vow of silence they rarely spoke except to sing God’s praises in the psalms and in prayer. As tough and extreme as their lives were, it did not stop the community from growing in numbers. Some in turn returned home and founded convents of Poor Clares in their own towns and cities.
READ MOREAbove all, the seventh commandment forbids theft, which is the taking or using of another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner. This can be done also by paying unjust wages; by speculation on the value of goods in order to gain an advantage to the detriment of others; or by the forgery of checks or invoices. Also forbidden is tax evasion or business fraud; willfully damaging private or public property; usury; corruption; the private abuse of common goods; work deliberately done poorly; and waste.
READ MOREOn March 28, 1171, Father Pietro da Verona was celebrating Easter Mass with three confreres. At the moment of the breaking of the consecrated Host, Blood gushed forth from the Host and threw large drops on the ceiling of the small crypt above the altar. Histories tell of the “holy fear of the celebrant and of the immense wonder of the people who crowded the tiny church.” There were many eyewitnesses who told of seeing the Host take on a Bloody color and having seen in the Host the figure of a Baby.
READ MOREThe seventh commandment requires respect for the universal destination and distribution of goods and the private ownership of them, as well as respect for persons, their property, and the integrity of creation. The Church also finds in this Commandment the basis for her social doctrine which involves the correct way of acting in economic, social and political life, the right and the duty of human labor, justice and solidarity among nations, and love for the poor.
READ MOREAlexandrina Maria da Costa was born on 30 March 1904 in Balasar, Portugal. She became paralyzed after jumping out of a window to preserve her purity from men who broke into her home. God helped her to see that suffering was her vocation and that she had a special call to be the Lord's "victim". From 1938 to 1942, Alexandrina lived the three-hour "passion" of Jesus every Friday, having received the mystical grace to live in body and soul Christ's suffering in his final hours. During these three hours, her paralysis was "overcome", and she would relive the Stations of the Cross, her movements and gestures accompanied by excruciating physical and spiritual pain. She was also diabolically assaulted and tormented with temptations against the faith and with injuries inflicted on her body.
READ MOREPope St. Gregory the Great was a direct eyewitness to this miracle. In the 6th century, it was customary to have the Eucharistic bread prepared by the parishioners. One Sunday, while celebrating the Sacred Mass in an ancient church dedicated to St. Peter, the Pope was distributing Communion and saw among the faithful in line, one of the women who had prepared the bread for the consecration laughing out loud.
READ MOREThe first and greatest Eucharistic Miracle of the Catholic Church occurred during the 8th century in the Church of St. Legontian in Lanciano, Italy, when a Basilian monk doubted Jesus' Real Presence in the Eucharist. After the consecration in Mass, the host was changed into live Flesh and the wine was changed into live Blood, which coagulated into five globules. The Flesh and the Blood can still be seen today. Various ecclesiastical investigations have been conducted since 1574. In the 1970’s, there was a scientific investigation by the scientist Professor Odoardo Linoli, eminent Professor in Anatomy and Pathological Histology and in Chemistry and Clinical Microscopy. He was assisted by Professor Ruggero Bertelli of the University of Siena. The results of their analyses are as follows:
READ MOREThey are immoral because they dissociate procreation from the act with which the spouses give themselves to each other and so introduce the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person. Furthermore, heterologous insemination and fertilization with the use of techniques that involve a person other than the married couple infringe upon the right of a child to be born of a father and mother known to him, bound to each other by marriage and having the exclusive right to become parents only through each another.
READ MOREThe custom of taking the Eucharist to prisoners and the sick became increasingly dangerous during the reign of Emperor Valerian, who was harshly persecuting Christians in the third century. One day, when the priest asked who in the congregation was prepared to take the Eucharist to the other brothers and sisters who were waiting for it, young Tarcisius stood up and asked to be sent. "My youth", Tarcisius said, "will be the best shield for the Eucharist". Convinced, the priest entrusted to him the precious Bread, saying: "Tarcisius, remember that a heavenly treasure has been entrusted to your weak hands. Avoid crowded streets and do not forget that holy things must never be thrown to dogs nor pearls to pigs. Will you guard the Sacred Mysteries faithfully and safely?". "I would die", Tarcisio answered with determination, "rather than let go of them".
READ MOREInsofar as it is bound to promote respect for the dignity of the person, civil authority should seek to create an environment conducive to the practice of chastity. It should also enact suitable legislation to prevent the spread of the grave offenses against chastity mentioned above, especially in order to protect minors and those who are the weakest members of society.
READ MOREThere are many means at one's disposal: the grace of God, the help of the sacraments, prayer, self-knowledge, the practice of an asceticism adapted to various situations, the exercise of the moral virtues, especially the virtue of temperance which seeks to have the passions guided by reason.
READ MORE