We are born with hearts that are designed to love. We are created to be members of families and communities. We are intended to be neighbors—and not just to the people we know and love, but to everyone.

The holy days of obligation you are actually bound to observe as a Catholic depend on what your local bishops’ conference (the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in the United States) has decided to do.

The fruits of the Eucharist are many. They bring about a unity in diversity, wherein each member of the body — responding to grace — can live unique and compelling eucharistic lives. The list is long, but I’m inclined to think St. Paul should be at its top.

This pilgrimage, set to commence the weekend of May 17-19, Pentecost Sunday, is not just an event but a profound journey of faith, community and spiritual transformation.

It is in this relationship we are safe and drawn to new life apart from the ravages of sin and evil.

God always provides what we need. He gives us the strength and the creativity and even the companions to handle those surprise situations – and even at the most difficult times, he accompanies us.

Those questions were echoing in my mind as I watched children walking back to their seats after receiving Communion. They were beaming, full of light and love and hope and sacramental grace.

Pro-lifers and pro-choicers both can miss the full experience of unexpected pregnancy and abortion and fail to see that post-abortive women are so much more than their singular decision to have an abortion.

“The Living Flame of Love” is a poem written by the 16th-century Spanish mystic with beautiful, fiery imagery to describe a soul’s perfect union with God. St. John wrote both the poem and a commentary on it for Doña Ana de Peñalosa, a widow who went to him for spiritual direction in Granada.

What’s the Ascension? What’s the Assumption? What’s the difference? The meaning of these two great feasts is sometimes a bit blurry.