Where did the Christmas tree come from?

I recently sat through a penance preparation session for parents. The teacher said, "Only neurotics would believe in mortal sin as we used too. Instead, mortal sin only happens when we break our fundamental option for God." I don't understand this. Whatever happened to mortal and venial sin?

Could you please explain what a "blessing" is?

Should non-Catholics who are not practicing their faith receive Holy Communion?

In helping to reverse the misfortunes of others, Shania Twain is doing through music, what Charles Dickens did through his novels. Her identification with compassion for hungry children has not abated because, as she tells us, I was that hungry kid. Shania Twains adversity formed her compassion and her strength, and it is to her honor and credit that it retains priority in her heart far above all the trappings of her extraordinary success.

The right to be offended, at virtually any time and under nearly any set of circumstances, is considered to be one of the more sacrosanct contributions of political correctness. What stern judgment should we impose then, on the poor, unenlightened soul who washes his floor with Spic and Span, paints his walls with Day-Glo, serves sauerkraut, Swedish meatballs, and Aunt Jemima pancakes to his guests whose necks have been reddened by exposure to the summer sun?

Few people today would think of Lent as a season for liturgical music. This is all very regrettable because when you look back at musical history, Lent has been an enormous source of inspiration for composers.

Pope Paul VI in 1969 reminded us in his introduction to the revised liturgical calendar that the season of Lent/Easter is a special time of the year and exerts much influence upon us which can lead to a deepening of our faith if we make use of it. The following are some activities that you may find helpful as you participative with your family (especially with young children) in observing these special 40 days.

Were seeing the first signs of an avalanche of conversions and reconversions. In 1998, more than 88,000 Protestants were received into the Catholic Church (and more than 73,000 adults were baptized, many of them from Protestant backgrounds) and the Protestants [now] coming into the Church are the most devoted Protestants, people deeply committed to Scripture and prayer. What accounts for this Protestant exodus at the twilight of the 20th century?

Sigrid Undset, who won the Noble prize for literature in 1928, explains freedom and authority as they concern a persons relationship with the Catholic Church. We have a basic mistrust for all authority that is of this world, and at the same time our human nature is subject to an incurable desire for authority.