Purgatory is indeed a state that exists apart from the linear time we experience in our lives on earth, and therefore we cannot truly speak about how long a soul spends in purgatory according to a literal measure of days, months or years.

There is no absolute certainty in discerning a vocational call. If we have certainty, we wouldn’t keep pursuing the mystery of God present in the silence and stillness. That is where the will of God is found.

All Saints is a churchwide holy day of obligation and normally celebrated on Nov. 1. If the first day of November falls on a Saturday or Monday, at least in the United States, the obligation to attend Mass is abrogated. All Souls’ Day takes place on Nov. 2, unless it falls on a Sunday, then the celebration is held Nov. 3.

Participating in the Jubilee for Synod Teams and Participatory Bodies in Rome was a moving experience of communion, prayer and listening at the heart of the universal Catholic Church. 

Much has been written about keeping Christ in Christmas but Catholic children’s author Anthony DeStefano’s new book is helping to keep the Hallow — or “holy” — in Halloween.

Whatever new challenges you undertake during this season, may you find they give you strength, clarity of purpose or whatever you are seeking on your faith journey. 

Death puts an end to the time the individual has been granted for embracing God’s grace or rejecting it.

n many cases we seem to be embarrassed by the ideas that spirits are real, that angels and demons exist, and that exorcisms are not an ancient misunderstanding of neurological problems.

I love thinking of God’s love in that way, how he loves us simply as we are, with no expectation for what we might achieve.

For Catholics, the terms “end times” and “last days” refer both to the conclusion of history at some future point, and also — even primarily — to the last 2,000 years.