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Featured Article:
The Society of the Divine Word: Ahead of its Time on Civil Rights
- From its earliest days, the Society of the Divine Word (SVD)-the largest
Catholic missionary order in the world-has welcomed people from other cultures
to sit with them at the table of Christ as equals. This willingness to engage
with people of other races, creeds and ethnic origins was never more evident
than when the society opened the first seminary for African Americans. Not
only was the seminary established decades before the Civil Rights movement of
the 1950s and 1960s, but it was established in the Deep South where racial
segregation ran the hottest.
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| NBCC Spirituality Article |
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 Have you ever felt like you were wasting your time being a Catholic? So many people say that
the Church is a fraud and that we can find God without all the drama and hypocrisy. Why can't we
just find God on our own? After all, the only thing that really counts is being a good person,
right? Life for a Catholic these days is pretty tough, especially when you interact with people
of different religions or no religion at all. You think it's hard for you, try walking around in
a priest's collar these days. Based on the ugly stares and loaded questions from total strangers,
it seems that many folks have formed opinions not only about our religion but also about us as
individuals. To be honest, these folks have some reasons for what they do. Something terrible
has happened in the Church and we can't just wish it away. We have to confront it.
We begin by confronting ourselves. Why am I a Catholic? Why am I remaining one even in the midst of scandal, frustration and disappointment? The answer is to be found in the teaching of the
faith itself.
- I am a Catholic because I believe that Jesus Christ is the Eternal Son of God made flesh.
- I am a Catholic because Jesus died on the cross in obedience to His Father's will to pay the price for my salvation.
- I am a Catholic because Jesus established His Church upon the Rock of Peter, first Bishop of Rome, first pope, and endowed His Church with all the means necessary to attain salvation.
- I am a Catholic because of the seven sacraments that Jesus gave to His Church to communicate His divine life to me, in particular the Holy Eucharist, the real and true body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus, which nourishes me with eternal life.
- I am a Catholic because Jesus has given me, and all others who so desire, the gift of the forgiveness of sins in the sacrament of penance.
- I am a Catholic because the Church has taught me, in fidelity to the teaching of Jesus and His Apostles.
- I am a Catholic because the Church has led me to the arms of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom Jesus gave to me and to all as a mother in the Spirit.
- I am a Catholic because the Church has introduced me to the communion of saints, the friends of Jesus in heaven who pray for me, and the souls in purgatory who rely on my prayers.
- I am a Catholic because the Bible bears witness to the Catholic faith of the Church.
- I am a Catholic because for two thousand years the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church have proclaimed Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior of the world.
- I am a Catholic because every time scandal and sin has weakened the public face of the Church, God has raised up saints-ordinary people like you and me, called to extraordinary witness-to heal and restore His Church.
- I am a Catholic because the faith of the Catholic Church is true, guaranteed by Christ's promise of the Holy Spirit, and against the Church of Jesus Christ, in spite of the perennial weakness of its shepherds and sheep, the gates of hell SHALL NOT PREVAIL!!!
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