The Narrow Gate Blog

This article was originally published at ncregister.com The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart is celebrated throughout the world on the Friday following the Feast of Corpus Christi.Every year, 19 days after Pentecost, the Catholic Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. But where did that tradition originate?Devotion to the wounded heart of Jesus has its origins in the eleventh century, when pious Christians meditated on the Five Wounds of Christ. There grew up among the faithf …

This article was originally published at catholicweekly.com.au The feast day to Mary Help of Christians has been celebrated in Australia since 1844 but the history to this day dates back to the start of the 1800’s.Napoleon Bonaparte had jailed Pius VI who died in jail. When Pope Pius VII was elected he too was jailed by Bonaparte, who kept him prisoner at Fontainbleau.The Holy Father vowed to God that if he were restored to the Roman See, he would institute a special feast in honour of Mary.The …

This article first appeared at: stpaulcenter.com In contemporary society, most people have no awareness that the offering of sacrifice to God is a central act of the virtue of religion and thus a good and morally obligatory thing. Even Catholics who attend Mass are generally unaware that they are participating in an infinite offering to God or that that is the principal reason why there is a Sunday Mass obligation. The more society becomes secularized, the more the notion of sacrifice and its ob …

This article first appeared at: stpaulcenter.com Every year in Lent the Church directs our thoughts to Jesus on the Cross. This is the sacred center of everything we believe and celebrate as Catholic Christians. Take away the Cross and you take away our salvation. Take away our salvation and everything “good” about the good news of the gospel evaporates.Most of us sense the importance of Jesus on the Cross, but how many of us really understand what was taking place? I would guess that very few c …

This article first appeared at: stpaulcentre.com When a man and a woman discern the vocation of marriage, they move from a private promise to each other—I am my beloved’s, and he is mine—to a public engagement. They approach the Church, at least six months before their hoped-for wedding date, to formalize their commitment. They prepare by learning more about what the Church teaches regarding marriage, for “marriage introduces one into an ecclesial order, and creates rights and duties in the Chur …