'If we don't communicate with God, we're inviting satan'

Thomas Mathew Vattakunnel
  I recently met the 10-year old son of a relative. When I asked him about family prayers, he glanced at me with a surprised look.   "There's no regular prayer in the family... it happens once in a fortnight or a month," he said.

Nuns in Bangladesh brutally attacked

  Catholics in Bangladesh, a majority Muslim South Asian nation are outraged over an attack upon a convent where a large group of men invaded the convent premises and attacked with attempts to rape the nuns. The armed men reportedly attacked the convent of PIME, or Pontifical Institute of Foreign Missions nuns in Boldipukur, a village mission in Dinajpur diocese in northern Bangladesh in the early hours of July 6.

‘Worry about your spiritual death, not your physical death…’

  Are you apprehensive about your physical death or spiritual death? A relevant question at a time when man can go – and he goes -- to any extent to look after his physical well being and comfort.  “These days many of us only care about our physical death. It shouldn’t be like that. You must be more worried about your spiritual death,” says Rev Fr Biju Kollamkunnel in a measured tone, choosing his words carefully, but hitting where it matters in his Sunday homily.

Louisiana ruling on confession rankles Catholics

Associated Press | BATON ROUGE, La. (AP)
 Catholics are decrying a recent Louisiana Supreme Court decision that reaches into the most sanctified of church places, the confessional booth.

100 minus 10 = 170. It's not 90

 What's 100 minus 10 (100-10)? Most of us will say 90 as the answer. 
 It's not necessarily 90. Then what's the answer? "It can be 170 also," says Rev Fr Kurian Karickal, a Christian charismatic preacher who's active in several countries.

'The banner of the poor is Christian... Communists have stolen it'

  Ever since Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio took over as the Pope on March 13, 2013, media has written reams about his close leaning towards communist ideology with some even calling him a 'communist'. 

You don’t need Jesus… You want only saints. Right?

Sheena George

 “You don’t need Jesus… you want only saints. Right?” asked our parish priest in  Mumbai who was dejected by the poor response to the feast of Sacred Heart of Jesus. His disappointment was not without reasons: only a handful of people – not even one-tenth of  2000-strong Catholic population in the area -- turned up for the feast last week. The church should have been full. When he looked at the empty benches, he became more melancholic. 

The savagery of ecumenical purges in Iraq, Syria, Egypt: Christians being wiped out

  Jerry Johnson, president of the National Religious Broadcasters, played a clip of Egyptian television’s coverage of a Christian who was beheaded at a conference of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox church leaders in Washington recently.

Satan, that odious mountebank, is cheating us when we judge others.

Sheena George

 We are good at judging others. We mean most of us, Christians. We get some kind of pleasure in prosecution of others through judgments. Inevitably, most of the time, nay all the the time, we go wrong while making judgments.

Pope Francis stops car to bless young disabled woman

  Pope Francis stopped the car that was transporting him to see a young disabled woman and her family on the side of the road during his June 21 pastoral visit to the region of Calabria in southern Italy.
 A video posted online by a family in the southern Italian region of Calabria depicts the encounter with the Holy Father. The Pope passed by the highway near the family’s house as he returned from Cassano allo Jonio, where he spoke out against the mafia.
 The family members waited with banners reading, 'Please Pope stop here to see an angel who has been waiting for you', and 'Please come and bless little Roberta'. When the Pope saw their signs, he asked for his car to stop, and immediately went to greet and bless the people, according to Vatican’s news.va.
 Once the vehicle stopped, the Holy Father descended, approached the woman, who was laying on a moving stretcher, blessed her, kissed her and greeted her family and the children around her.
 The young woman – Roberta – is disabled and cannot travel far from her home, because she is dependent upon a machine to breathe. Her family voiced their gratitude to the Holy Father on Facebook. “I still can't believe it, thank you Holy Father...I thank the Pope for having given us a moment of great joy,” her sister, Pamela, wrote.
 “Today we can say that Christ stopped in Sibari in the vestments of Pope Francis,” added Ivan Vania, a friend who helped make the posters calling the Pope’s attention.

Don’t store up your wealth in this world

Thomas Mathew Vattakunnel

 If you keep all your savings in the bank or stock markets, will it help you? Jesus says it’s meaningless. Bible gives clear answers. It’s not worth storing up wealth in this world, which is a short period.