How much reading do you do in a year? More specifically, how much Catholic reading do you do in a year? I am talking about books, articles, newspapers, blogs, websites, twitter, and instagram to name just a few. What about Catholic radio? Do you send a specific amount of time reading or learning about your faith? The Catholic faith is complex and rich with history and significance. There is so much to know about it and the resources are everywhere. I think that as I became more comfortable with the teachings of the Catholic church through study, I became much more willing to do as Jesus asked and evangelize. Bringing the Gospel to the unchurched is one of our primary missions in life. Exposing people to the life of Jesus and His teachings is needed in this world more than ever. The spread of relativism, the focus on oneself and free will, has made the world we live in very complex. As Christians we are assaulted for our beliefs everyday. And one of the ways to push back on this relativism is by bringing people into the Catholic church. Another way is to live the life that Jesus chose for us. We should be focusing less on ourselves and more on others. How is God calling you to be His earthen vessel? What is your special mission? A good way to begin to discover that is to learn more about the Catholic faith each day. Make a short term goal of reading a few pages of Catholic writing everyday. Turn you car radio to the local Catholic station. Bring your prayer book to work and use the small down time windows as your opportunity to pray more. All of this effort will allow you to grow in knowledge, faith, and confidence so that you are willing and able to evangelize.
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...