Author: CatholicG33kAdmin
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HE CROSS BEFORE CALVARY? — EZEKIEL 9
There is a mysterious scene in Ezekiel that Christians have been reflecting on for centuries. Before judgment falls upon Jerusalem, God commands the man clothed in linen: “Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem: and mark Thau upon the foreheads of the men that sigh, and mourn for all the…
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The Strange Freedom of Surrender
Reading Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain Some books are interesting. Others make you uncomfortable in exactly the way a good spiritual book should. Thomas Merton’s The Seven Storey Mountain did that for me. I expected a conversion story. And, of course, that is what the book is: Merton’s account of his restless early life,…
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When a Civilization Loses Its Horror of Abortion
There are moments when a society does not merely change its laws; it changes what it is capable of seeing. Abortion is one of those questions. The Catholic Church does not oppose abortion because of political fashion, nostalgia, or hostility toward women. She opposes it because an innocent human life is deliberately destroyed. Beneath every…
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The World Hated Him First
The Richmond Catholic Memo, the machinery of suspicion, and why the Church Christ founded will always be an enemy of the spirit of the age “If the world hate you, know ye, that it hath hated me before you.”— John 15:18, Douay-Rheims There is a temptation whenever Catholics discover something like the FBI’s Richmond Catholic…
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Michelangelo, the Catholic Church, and the Mysteries Hidden in His Art
Michelangelo Buonarroti was not simply one of the greatest artists who ever lived. He was also a man whose life became inseparably connected with the Catholic Church. Born in AD 1475, Michelangelo lived during one of the most dramatic periods in Church history. Renaissance Rome was filled with extraordinary beauty, political struggle, corruption, reform movements,…
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Sunday Worship in the Early Church: The Didache and Saint Justin Martyr
There is a question every Christian should be willing to ask. What did Christian worship actually look like before the divisions of later centuries? Not what do Catholics say it looked like. Not what do Protestants say it looked like. What do the earliest Christians themselves tell us? Because if we can read writings produced…
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The Mummified Arm of Prague: The Legend of the Virgin Mary and the Thief of St. James
Hidden among the winding streets of Prague’s Old Town stands the magnificent Basilica of St. James the Greater, or Bazilika svatého Jakuba Většího. Its soaring Baroque interior, gilded altars, paintings, tombs, and historic organ make it one of the remarkable Catholic churches of the Czech capital. Yet just inside the church hangs something far more…
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The parable of the wicked tenants in Matthew 21 is far deeper when read beside Isaiah.
Christ is not inventing a random vineyard story. He is deliberately invoking Isaiah 5. Isaiah writes that God planted a vineyard, fenced it, cleared it, planted choice vines, built a tower, and prepared a winepress. Then Isaiah tells us plainly: “For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel.”— Isaiah 5:7…
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From Jerusalem To Rome: WHEN The Shadow Gave Way To The Body
Could ancient Jewish tradition have unknowingly preserved signs pointing to Christ? Yoma 39b records that several Temple signs ceased about forty years before Jerusalem’s destruction in AD 70—roughly the time of the Crucifixion. Seen alongside Hebrews, Romans, and the Gospel accounts, these traditions invite a profound reflection on the passing of the old sacrificial order,…
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Why Is There a “Pagan” Obelisk in St. Peter’s Square?
A CatholicG33k Investigation Into Egypt, Pagan Rome, St. Peter, and the Triumph of the Cross Walk into St. Peter’s Square and it is impossible to miss. Standing directly in the center of one of the most recognizably Catholic places on earth is an enormous ancient stone obelisk. And sooner or later, someone online will point…