The Church fought courageously against the iconoclasts in the 9th century. They were against any veneration of images and icons. It was not only a matter of preserving venerable customs, works of art, or forms of devotion; the very truth
Unlike Matthew and Luke, who draw parallels to Moses, Elijah, and Israel, Mark’s focus diverges. The parallel he paints is clear and evocative—a remembrance of the mythical figure of Adam, the idyllic paradise, and the serpent’s infamous temptation. Notably, ‘Eden,’
In today’s Gospel, we are presented with a powerful narrative of a man afflicted with leprosy, an outcast from society, who approaches Jesus with a humble plea, saying, “If you wish, you can make me clean.” As we delve into
In the first reading, you have just heard how Job exclaims: “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.” Job represents, almost all the time, the opinion of a kind of pagan who
When Jesus entered the synagogue of Capernaum in today’s Gospel, there had been no prophets in Israel for more than four hundred years. Although worship had been reestablished in the rebuilt Temple of Jerusalem – after the exile in Babylon
Indeed, the historical Nineveh, the capital of the bloodthirsty Assyrian empire, starting with the Sennacherib kingdom at the end of the 8th century, was a vast city: its walls had a perimeter of seven and a half miles. Even so,
One of the oldest qualifications by which Christians were called was – and we find it in the epistles of Saint Paul – that of “called,” “summoned.” “You who are called,” Paul writes to Timothy. And it is the denomination
In today’s gospel, we learned from the three Magi: “We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage.” Our three friends got their calling far away in the East. It was a long journey from
On Christmas Eve, 800 years ago, St. Francis of Assisi organized the first live Nativity scene in Greccio, a town located 55 miles south of Assisi in Italy. At St. Elizabeth’s, we have a beautiful stained glass window commemorating this
Following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, St. Maximilian Kolbe and several friars were apprehended due to their involvement in media evangelization. The Nazis confiscated all valuable assets from Niepokalonow, while the remaining friars devoted their time to aiding
