"A Humble Servant's Catholic Blog"

I had a prediction for the end of the world come to me a week or two before Christmas. It was a comment by a fellow named "E", nestled as a comment in one of my other articles, automatically flagged as spam. Now that his predicted end of the world has come and gone, I thought I'd offer feedback on what went wrong with the prediction. I visited with the person who sent the message, and it turns out that this was much more than just another " I have predicted the end of the world " preacher.  The person actually believes himself to be, not just a prophet, but THE prophet.  Because of this, and my suspicion that there are some psychological issues, I have removed his identifying information, which includes his websites. "E's" comment began with a call to attention: " You are part of a search and rescue for lost Catholics. Regular updates to the countdown to the Day of the Lord by the sign of the Son of Man in Heaven at : [ website link red...

I was recently directed to a website belonging to John Lilley, an author of at least three books on Christianity. One of those books is titled “ Hell is a Mistranslation ”. One article on his website, titled “ The Early Christians did not Believe in Hell ” served as a sort of prologue to the book, explaining why Lilley believes “hell” to be a mistranslation and explaining that neither Christ nor the early Christian writers from the first several centuries believed in “hell” as we understand it today. I have attempted several times to re-access his webpage lately, but have been unable. I continue to get a message that the webpage (johnlilley.org) has expired. Whether the page will come up again, I do not know. What I do know is that there are at least a handful of people who have recently read his article and were misled by it, and so I am going to refute it. Actually, I’m going to let Jesus and the early Christians refute it; I’ll just post their words. Christ, Himself, as w...

*Theological interpretations and understandings aside, the teaching on Hell and the Last Judgment can be summarized in this way: IV. HELL 1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." 612 Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. 613 To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell." 1034 Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who ...

My brother died on Sunday, August 10, 2014. Just a week prior, on the feast day of St. Alphonsus Liguori ( August 1 or 2, depending on the Liturgical calendar you use ), he wrote a letter which he intended for all the Catholics in his area to read or hear from their respective Priests. Part of his dying wish was that all Catholics would be encouraged to learn their faith more deeply and thoroughly in order to grow closer to God and prepare for our eternal destination. By this time, he had held a catechesis meeting with the local parishes, and led a discussion with a local Confirmation class, which I had the honor of sitting in and listening to. Shortly after writing this, on Tuesday, August 5, he had a friend record a video message in which he delivered a catechesis/apologetics lesson, followed by a Q&A session. I made minor edits [in brackets] to this letter, but the message was not changed in any way. This is my brother's death-bed letter: [Recipients' na...

Death . It’s one of those things that most people try not to think about. And if they are thinking about it, it’s usually not in a positive light. We tend to associate death with lament, angst, fear, horror, or some other negative emotion/feeling. And in reality, that seems very natural because humans were not originally created to die…it’s not part of the original design. Man was created to LIVE. But it is a reality that, from the first act of rebellion against our Creator, death entered the scene and it is appointed for all men to die a physical death ( cff. Rom 5:12-21, Hb 9:27 ).   So, is there a way to view death is a positive light? Is there anything good about death? Is there anything about death that we can look forward to? SURE! But let’s back up for a second and take a wider view before answering those questions. There are few things in life that are certain. Of those certainties are: 1 – Death. All men will die. There is nothing you can do to es...

As a young child, and even into early adulthood, this question perplexed me, and the answer seemed so vague as to hardly be capable of any true meaning itself. I don't remember if it was in a movie, or if someone I knew revealed the "answer" to me, but ite was: "this"...as a single finger was held up. The meaning of life is "THIS [ONE THING]" that you find more important that any other thing and you live your life to achieve that [one thing] which can only be known to you, and you alone...only YOU know what is repreented by that finger you hold up. Well, that sounded fine enough at the time. All I had to do was figure out what was more important to me than anything else in the world...the one thing I'd want to live my life for. But there's a problem with that. What if my "one thing" directly conflicts with someone else's? OR what if my "one thing" necessarily subjects other people to my own will...is THEIR "one t...