SCCR Parish Blog

  I'm just a bit late with this: Yesterday, we celebrated the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, the great 13th century friar, scholar and doctor of the church.  He is without question one of the greatest theologians in Church history.  Fortunately, he wrote prodigiously and we still have his writings, hymns, Scripture commentaries and more. Below is a brief snippet from the breviary (the Church's daily prayer book) with his reflections on how the Cross encompasses all the virtues (habits of holiness) which we strive for.  This is also available online at universalis.com From a conference by Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest The Cross exemplifies every virtue Why did the Son of God have to suffer for us? There was a great need, and it can be considered in a twofold way: in the first place, as a remedy for sin, and secondly, as an example of how to act.   It is a remedy, for, in the face of all the evils which we incur on account of our sins, we have found relief t...

  With so many young Catholics drifting away from the Church and her holy sacraments, many family members are faced with a knotty problem: what to do when they marry outside the Church or enter into a marriage in a way that breaks the commandments of Christ.  On the one hand, family members want to be supportive of their relatives, but on the other they don't want to condone something that is wrong. Dr. Janet Smith, a well-know moral theologian and popular author, has some thoughts well worth reading.  They are in the form of an open letter she wrote to her goddaughter when she decided to marry outside the Church.  The letter links to her comments on what to do if the marriage itself is sinful.

  In some of our Bible study groups, there have been questions about purgatory.  I often speak of this in November, when the Church traditionally intensifies her attention to the "Four Last Things": Death, Judgment, Heaven (and the purgatory needed for many to get there) & Hell. However, since there has been a lot of false or misleading teaching about purgatory in recent years, I want to address it again.  One of the worst false teachings which crept in especially in the 1970s and 1980s is that "the Church doesn't teach purgatory is real any more."   That is flat out wrong.  Here are some good brief articles on the topic. A good Q&A regarding common questions about purgatory from Britain's Catholic Truth Society. The question of purgatory and time from Catholic blog Aleteia. At the bottom of this post, I've included some brief excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church on purgatory. Finally, just a note on the artistic depictions of pur...

  I am reprinting my parish bulletin column from this weekend  below (with several of my typos fixed!)  Please continue to pray fervently not only that the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade but that we Christians will be prepared to bring the Gospel of Life to the nation when they do.  =================== Preparing for a post-Roe world 49 years is a long time.  As of yesterday, that is how long the country has lived under the Roe v. Wade regime – that is, the coercive mandate from the U.S. Supreme Court to make it legal in all 50 states to kill a child in the womb for almost any reason at any time, due to the twin judgments decided in 1973 of Roe and Doe v. Bolton .  There is an old saying that “the law is a teacher,” so to put that in perspective, our government has been attempting to teach over two generations of our citizens that is is perfectly acceptable to kill a fellow human being.  Or, to put in another way, a significant percentage of our p...

  UPDATED: 1/21  @ 9:30 p.m.  Fixed broken link below for the novena .   Sorry! In preparation for the nationwide Day of Prayer and Penance for the Legal Protection of the Unborn tomorrow (Saturday, January 22nd), the U.S. Bishops have provided very helpful resources suggesting a daily prayer and act of penance for nine days straight.  This "novena" tradition -- of invoking the Lord intensely in prayer and penance for important intercessions -- is rooted way back to the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. It marks the most important of prayer requests and the protection of life in the womb is one that the Church has always taught is of pre-eminent importance, since the right to life and protection of the most innocent is foundational not only to our faith but for human flourishing in any society. Please pray and act on this novena prayer they provide.  You can choose any consecutive nine-day period, but I recommend starting today, January 21st, t...

  In addition to the information from the last post regarding the Day of Prayer and Penance for Legal Protection of the Unborn coming up this Saturday, January 22nd, the Archdiocese's pro-life office has provided a great summary of local pro-life activities in greater Cincinnati that you can participate in this week, including a Rosary rally downtown; prayer outside of Cincinnati's Planned Parenthood facility in Mt. Auburn (Cincinnati) with Mass and adoration at a church nearby; and other activities.  For those who don't want to travel that far, we will also have a Mass for life at St. Peter at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday . The March for Life itself in Washington, D.C., is a prayerful witness of hundreds of thousands praying and marching in the nation's capital from the Washington monument to the U.S. Supreme Court.  That occurs Friday, January 21st  from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m. (the vigil day of the Roe v. Wade anniversary).  You can watch that live on ETWN , on cable or v...

  Our American bishops have recently dedicated January 22 nd  each year as a nationwide day of prayer and penance for the legal protection of unborn children. They chose this date since it is the anniversary of the radically unjust U.S. Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which overrode the power of any state to prevent the killing of children in the womb.   This month, we will be at 49 years since that dreadful judgment. While it is always critical to promote the right to life with maximum determination  [cf. para. 38], as St. John Paul II so boldly taught, it is especially important this year, as the future of Roe v. Wade hangs in the balance with a case currently before the high Court (Dobbs. vs Jackson)  which could narrow or even overturn that previous ruling.    I encourage you and your families to take seriously this commitment to pray on this day (Saturday, January 22nd), since the right to life is the foundational issue upon which all ...