question corner CommentaryMarian DevotionQuestion Corner Question Corner: Why is New Year’s Day a holy day of obligation? Jenna Marie CooperDecember 31, 20254 min read Jan. 1 is not a holy day of obligation because of the civil new year, but because it is the feast of Mary, the Mother of God. CommentaryQuestion CornerSaints Question Corner: What does the term ‘protomartyr’ mean? Jenna Marie CooperDecember 29, 20254 min read The martyrs always bear witness to the truth in the most convincing way of all, by dying for what they believed and staking their life on the reality of heaven. CommentaryQuestion Corner Question Corner: Will the Catholic Church have women deacons? Jenna Marie CooperDecember 17, 20254 min read While we should not expect to see women literally ordained alongside male diaconate candidates, the question of deaconesses in general is a complex and multifaceted one with many positive implications. AdventCommentaryQuestion Corner Question Corner: When can Catholics sing the Advent hymn ‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel?’ Jenna Marie CooperDecember 10, 20254 min read The church does not have any explicit rule about when the hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” can be sung. In principle, it’s perfectly allowed to sing this throughout Advent. However, I think I can guess why your choir director wants to hold off on using this hymn until later in the season. AdventCommentaryQuestion Corner Question Corner: Do Catholics give things up for Advent? Jenna Marie CooperDecember 3, 20254 min read Catholics aren’t required to “give anything up” for Advent. And even while the practice of taking on an additional, personal Lenten penance is a well-established and praiseworthy custom, Catholics technically aren’t required to do anything extra for Lent beyond the usual fasting and abstinence from meat (see Canon 1251 of the Code of Canon Law). CommentaryMarian DevotionQuestion Corner Question Corner: Is it a sin if someone calls Mary ‘co-redemptrix?’ Jenna Marie CooperNovember 26, 20254 min read A Catholic who stubbornly refused to accept the church’s teaching in “Mater Populi Fidelis” and continued to refer to Mary as “co-redemptrix” out of a willful disregard for the pope’s authority likely would be sinning. CommentaryQuestion Corner Question Corner: Why does the church still have indulgences? Jenna Marie CooperNovember 19, 20254 min read Those of us still on earth can actively strive for a deeper sense of conversion and detachment from sin, but the souls in purgatory can no longer help themselves in this way and are dependent on our prayers and penances. CommentaryQuestion CornerVocations Question Corner: How many vocations are there? Jenna Marie CooperNovember 6, 20254 min read It’s important to keep in mind that the concept of “vocation” is ultimately not about sorting ourselves or others into boxes, but rather is about discerning and embracing God’s will for us in our own unique life situation — whether or not that fits tidily into one of the above-mentioned categories. CommentaryQuestion Corner Question Corner: What do we mean when we talk about reducing specific amounts of time in purgatory? Jenna Marie CooperOctober 29, 20254 min read 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. CommentaryQuestion CornerSaints Question Corner: Is there any way to know how long a person might be in purgatory? Jenna Marie CooperOctober 22, 20254 min read Generally, there is no clear way to know whether or not someone is still in purgatory. Previous 1 … 4 5 6 … 29 Next
