By tradition, the person who retrieves the wooden cross will be freed from evil spirits and will be healthy throughout the year. After the cross is fished out, the priest sprinkles believers with water using a bunch of basil.
Faith
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
A Catholic Sister learns to serve people with AIDS
In the fifth episode of “Plague,” Mike visits the small Midwestern city of Belleville, Illinois, where a Catholic Sister broke ground in the 1980s by opening an organization to provide services for people living with HIV and AIDS.
Posted inFaith, Features
These are the monks who still preserve ancient texts around the world
Even though manuscripts—handwritten books— are at least several technological stages behind the ways we access information today, we still rely on them for access to the past.
Posted inFaith, Podcasts
A gay Catholic Church in the Castro
Learn more at www.americamag.org/plague.
Posted inFaith, Features
The shrink and the spiritual director: Freud and the Jesuits
Members of the Society of Jesus have been among the relatively few Catholic Christians with a discerning appreciation for Freud.
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
Graduate students at Catholic universities need faith formation, too
There are now a large number of graduate students in Catholic higher education, and few of them encounter anything substantive in regards to faith formation, religious meaning-making or the role of spirituality in their lives.
Posted inFaith, Interviews
How prayer changes politics: A conversation with Kathryn Jean Lopez
Kathryn Jean Lopez on her career, her new book and her ongoing drift from conservative politics to Catholic spirituality.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
The types of women who veil at Mass
Hint: Most of them are just ‘regular Catholics wanting to deepen their devotion.’
Posted inFaith, The Good Word
Advent tells us it’s okay to hope
Yes, your hopes might be frustrated, but that is better than trying to extinguish hope in God.
Posted inFaith, Of Many Things
The Scandal of Knock: God can transform any nowhere into somewhere
Father Matt Malone, S.J., reflects on God’s grace can grace can transform nowheres into somewheres, and nobodies into somebodies.