Learning to be Quick to Listen

In his new book , "Seek First the Kingdom," Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl calls on Catholics to seek God's kingdom and then reflect it in their everyday lives. When Catholics deepen their own faith, their hearts are transformed, and when they share it with others, they can change their community, their nation and their world, the cardinal wrote in his book, which is subtitled "Challenging the Culture by Living Our Faith. To be in the kingdom is to be with Christ always, and to be for Christ always, in season and out of season, in private and in public, on the job and on our days off," he wrote in the book, which was published in November by Our Sunday Visitor. At a time when many people only know kingdoms from history, fairy tales and royal weddings, Cardinal Wuerl points out how God's kingdom "forms the heart of the Gospel," and as Pope Benedict XVI has noted, the phrase "the kingdom of God" appears 122 times in the New Testament, ...

Prayer should not center just on asking God to fulfill one's hopes and desires, but must include praise, thanks and trust in God's plan which may not match one's own, Pope Benedict XVI said. The way Jesus prayed to his Father "teaches us that in our own prayers, we must always trust in the Father's will and strive to see all things in light of his mysterious plan of love," he said during his weekly general audience. In his catechesis to nearly 6,000 people in the Vatican audience hall, Pope Benedict continued a series of talks on Christian prayer. Everyone should seek to understand that when asking something of God in prayer, "we mustn't expect the immediate fulfillment of what we are asking for, of our will, but rather trust in the will of the Father," the pope said. Requests, praise and thanks must be included in every prayer. "even when it seems to us that God is not living up to our real expectations," he said. Prayer is a dialogue ...

We are constantly hearing of the ways in which new technologies are denigrating our lives. So it was with joy that I read the following story. Most colleges require students to put away their cellphones during class. However, for one class at The Catholic University of America, not bringing a cellphone to class can result in loss of points from their participation grade. Cellphone photography is a new class at Catholic University in Washington that allows students to see photography in a fresh way and explore a device they carry with them every day in a different way. Students are told to turn their everyday lives into a book of photographs. For example, one assignment was to take photos on their phone at their Thanksgiving dinner celebration with their families. Only a handful of other universities offer a class like the one taught at Catholic University. The class encourages students to post the photos taken in class on their social media sites and is taught by professional photograp...

Are you aware that we are presently living in the Millennium described to us in the Book of Revelation? This may come as a surprise to many of us, especially those of us who have read the Left Behind series or other premillennial works like it. The Church adheres to the prevailing idea that we are currently living in the Christian age. Now that raises some very important questions about what is going on with our world. As with anything, it all depends on perspective. Before the Millennium, Satan was able to block the sharing of the Gospel. People were not able to share in the Good News. Very few people in fact even knew about God and His message. After Jesus Christ came to defeat death, the message of salvation offered through our loving God was revealed to all. The destruction of death involves the resurrection of the dead—all of the dead, not just some dead, or death would not have been destroyed. This occurs in Revelation 20:13–14, which is after the Millennium (cf. Rev. 20:1–6). So...