Tag: Church Fathers
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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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What Began in Eden Points to Calvary
The Bride From the Side There is a mystery hidden in the opening pages of Genesis that reaches its fulfillment beneath the Cross. In the garden, Adam is cast into a deep sleep. God opens his side, and from his side comes the woman who will become his bride: “Then the Lord God cast a…
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The “Apocrypha” Points to Christ: The Deuterocanonical Books Protestants Are Missing
If you have ever opened a Protestant Bible and compared its Old Testament with a Catholic Bible, you probably noticed something strange. The Catholic Bible has more books. Tobias. Judith. Wisdom. Ecclesiasticus. Baruch. First and Second Machabees. Plus additional portions of Esther and Daniel. Protestants commonly call these books the Apocrypha. Catholics call them the…
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Is Purgatory Real? Beyond the Myths
The biblical, historical, and Catholic case for purification after death. The small Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Prati, on the banks of the Tiber, houses a most curious collection of artifacts: sixteen pieces of cloth, paper, or wood, each claimed to bear the scorched signs of hands and fingerprints from souls in…
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Genesis 3:15, Jerome, and the Woman Who Crushes the Serpent
Some Protestants claim that Catholics invented Marian doctrine by mistranslating Genesis 3:15. The accusation usually goes like this: St. Jerome changed the Bible from “he shall crush your head” to “she shall crush your head” in order to force Mary into the text. That charge sounds powerful. It is also historically shallow. The truth is…
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The Septuagint: God’s Providence in Preparing the Way for Christ
A reflection on the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that became the Bible of the early Church. Introduction In the divine economy of salvation, God prepares His people long before great events unfold. He works through cultures, languages, empires, and even the labors of scholars to accomplish His saving plan. One of the…