How Christian Friendship Keeps Us Accountable

Christian Friendship Trust and Accountability

There are many benefits to Christian friendship, from making us smarter to teaching us how to love. Another potent benefit of friendship is its ability to make us better people. A good friendship can form our character in three powerful ways. Friends Form the Atmosphere of Our Lives Our friendships form the atmosphere of our…

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God’s Thirst Meets Ours: The Desire of Catholic Prayer

Catholic Prayer is Our Thirst Meeting God's

Catholic prayer is a personal relationship with God. But this relationship is not the emotional feeling of connection that modern Christians often associate with a “personal relationship with Jesus.” In fact, Catholic spiritual masters often warn against being driven by feelings. While feelings of warmth and closeness to God are certainly real, and are in…

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Do Catholics Worship Saints?

Do Catholics Worship Saints – Father Mike Schmitz?

Father Mike Schmitz explores the claim that Catholics worship saints by praying to them. 00:00:07 Hi my name’s Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents. 00:00:10 So I was recently talking with a man, he’s a missionary with FOCUS: The Fellowship of Catholic University Students. This awesome guy; he wasn’t always a missionary and…

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Daily Bible: The Lord Secures Justice

Daily Bible: The Lord Secures Justice

Read Today’s Readings In Philemon 7-20 we see Saint Paul navigating the challenges that the Gospel poses to human culture. The slave Onesimus escapes from Philemon, who is a Christian, and runs to Saint Paul, apparently seeking sanctuary. Saint Paul’s response is to send Onesimus back to Philemon with this letter. In the letter Saint Paul…

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Daily Bible: Be Blameless

Daily Bible: Be Blameless

Read Today’s Readings Today’s first reading is from Saint Paul’s letter to Titus 1:1-9. Saint Paul has ordained Titus as a bishop, and has instructed Titus to in turn raise up bishops in each city where he starts a local church. In the time of the apostles, the term for bishop and priest were used…

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Daily Bible: You Are the Temple

Daily Bible: You Are the Temple

Read Today’s Readings In today’s first reading from Ezekiel 47:1-12, the prophet shares his vision of a river flowing from the temple, giving life wherever it flowed. The river represented the Covenant, the love of God flowing into the world. For the Jewish people from the time of Solomon until its destruction in 70AD, the…

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Daily Bible: The Laws of Love

Daily Bible: The Laws of Love

Read Today’s Readings In today’s first reading, Deuteronomy 2:2-6, we hear Moses exhorting the Hebrew people to not only obey the Law of God but to love it. He also sums up the purpose of the Law with words that become the central prayer of the Jewish faith, called the Shema (which means “Hear): Hear,…

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