BIG C CATHOLICS

This is the traditional Catholic prayer to one's guardian angel. Angel of God, my guardian dear to whom God's love commits me here. Ever this day/night be at my side to light, to guard, to rule and guide. Amen. Whether guardian angels attend each and every person is not consis- tently believed or upheld by the Church Fathers in Christian thought, and hence is not an "article of faith", although the concept is clearly seen in both the Old and New Testaments. According to St. Jerome the concept is in the "mind of the Church" and he stated that: "how great the dignity of the soul, since each one has from his birth an angel commissioned to guard it." The first Christian theologian to outline a specific scheme for guardian angels was Honorius of Autun in the 12th century. He said that every soul was assigned a guardian angel the moment it was put into a body. Scholastic theologians augmented and ordered the taxonomy of angelic guardians. Thom

Marriage -- it's a lot bigger than just what happens on the wedding day. Marriage is our most important and timeless social institution, which means that changing marriage has consequences for all of society.   http://www.alliancedefendingfreedom.org/page/why-marriage-matters

Created to Know God - Fr. John Riccardo from Renewal Ministries on Vimeo .

  It's there for a reason: Because we're all "bad" Catholics sometimes.

“Priests have received a power which God has given neither to angels nor to archangels. It was said to them: ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever you shall loose, shall be loosed.’ Temporal rulers have indeed the power of binding; but they can only bind the body. Priests, in contrast, can bind with a bond which pertains to the soul itself and transcends the very heavens. Did [God] not give them all the powers of heaven? … What greater power is there than this? The Father has given all judgment to the Son. And now I see the Son placing all this power in the hands of men. They are raised to this dignity as if they were already gathered up to heaven.” St. John Chrysostom, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

Deacon Mike Bickerstaff There are two types of punishment due to sin: Eternal punishment & Temporal punishment Eternal punishment, what we might call guilt, is forgiven and removed in the Sacrament of Confession. You carry it in when you enter the Confessional, but you leave without it when you receive Absolution. If you had lost Sanctifying Grace, you have received it again and all eternal guilt and punishment is gone. But, temporal punishment remains to be paid in this life or in the life to come. Also, any attachments to sin may remain after Confession. It might help to understand temporal punishment by way of an analogy. If one steals something from a friend and goes to that friend seeking forgiveness, that friend might indeed forgive him. Those two people are once again friends. That is what God does with us in Confession. He restores Communion between us. But, just as your human friend might expect you to return to him what was stolen, there may likewise be some act