Corpus Christi Blog

How often do you find yourself filled with worry or anxiety over the problems of your daily life? We frequently look for solutions to various challenges and pray for specific outcomes as we would like to see things untangled in our lives according to our limited human understanding of the problem. Many of us are so busy trying to work through our day-to-day lives, by the choices we make and the actions we take, that we sometimes we forget who really is in charge.

I have received a number of questions recently about the practice of infant baptism versus reserving baptism for adulthood, when the individual chooses it for his or herself. I’ve decided to take it as a sign from the Holy Spirit to offer an explanation of the Church’s teaching on infant baptism on a larger scale.

Our Catholic faith is very rich in the numerous paths to holiness it offers. You may notice the various devotions people are drawn to or the different practices your friends have adopted to express their faith. There are as many paths to holiness as there are people walking them. It may be confusing to understand what exactly is required of a practicing Catholic in the midst of so many options for prayer and devotion. To help clarify, today we will examine the differences between public and private revelation and how the Church treats each version.

This year, Sunday, May 8th has been designated as the World Day of Prayer for Vocations. The term “vocation” can mean different things within different contexts. In a particular sense, it essentially means that all of us have a calling from God to fulfill a very specific role or roles in each of our own lives. For example, some of us are called to be parents, doctors, artists, or activists for a moral cause. In this context, we often have more than one vocation at a time, such as one woman being a wife, mother, and teacher in obedience to all God has called her to be. When we acknowledge our God-given gifts and agree to do with them what the Lord intends, we are living out our vocational life.

Imagine your teenager confides in you that a friend at school is pregnant. What are your first thoughts? Do you ask questions, determine if the friend has a support system, or if she is scared and doesn’t know where to turn? What if it was your daughter? Or maybe it’s a friend at work who is living paycheck to paycheck, perhaps with an unstable homelife, who has turned to you for advice.